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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE SITE OF OLD 
"JAMES TOWNE" 
1607 <€& 1698 



A Brief Historical and 
Topographical Sketch 

OF THE 

First American Metropolis. 

Illustrated with Original Maps, 
Drawings and Photographs 

BY 

SAMUEL H. YONGE 



l Red\vivum est ex vetusto renovatum." — Festtjs. 



Tercentenary Edition. 



RICHMOND. VA.: 

The Hermitage Press, Inc. 
1907. 



"library of congress] 

Two Copies Received ' 
MAY 11 190T 

■*Vi Copyright Entry 
*^-o^u, i-T. 'pi 
CLASS f\ XXc, No. 

COPY B. 



Copyright, 1903, 

by 

Samuel H. Yonge. 






Copyright, 1907, 

by 

Samuel H. Yonge. 



ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 



^ 



TO 

MRS. JOSEPH BRYAN 

PRESIDENT 

OF THE 

Association for the Preservation of 

Virginia Antiquities 

In recognition of her efforts for perpetuating 

the ancient landmarks of 

VIRGINIA 
This book is dedicated 

" Remove not the ancient landmark which 
thy Fathers have set." 

— Proverbs, Chap, xxii, v. 28. 



preface to the 
Tercentenary Edition. 



HE Site of Old ' James Towne/ 1607-1698/' originally 
1M appeared in four consecutive issues of the Virginia 
fp) Magazine of History and Biography, between January 
and October, 1904. The monograph was published 
in book form by the Association for the Preservation of Vir- 
ginia Antiquities in the same year. The work included the 
results of the author's original investigations as to the town's 
site, and was issued to correct the erroneous opinions on the 
subject, that obtained up to the time of its publication. 

The newly discovered matter comprised the locations of the 
shore line of the head of Jamestown Island in the seventeenth 
century and several other important topographical features, the 
site of the former town, including its churches, state house 
buildings and forts, the probable landing place of the first party 
of settlers and the residences and grounds of some of the town's 
prominent people. The determination of these features has 
been generally accepted. It is disappointing, however, to find 
that some of the most important original deductions have 
appeared in other writings, without the customary credit being 
accorded to " The Site of Old ' James Towne.' " 

Since the first publication of the work, no information has 
been discovered to throw additional light on the subject. After 
a careful review of the available data and a study of the 
Ambler MSS., it appears that no change can be made in the 
map, as originally constructed from the transcripts of the old 
patents at Eichmond, Va. 

The text of the present edition is almost identically the 
same as the first. The exceptions to the above are of a minor 
character, consisting of the amplification of a few paragraphs 

[5] 



6 PREFACE. 

to make them, clearer, and the addition of two chapters, one a 
brief outline of some of the social and economic conditions that 
obtained in England and Virginia during the Jamestown 
period, the other a connected summary of important events that 
occurred during the town's life. 

The portraits of Sir Henry Wriothsley and Lord La Warr 
are taken from Brown's Genesis of the United States, and that 
of Sir Edwin Sandys from Brown's First Republic, with the 
sanction of the publishers, Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin and Com- 
pany, for which courtesy acknowledgment is hereby made. 

The tercentenary edition is presented in response to numerous 
requests, and to meet the demand for information on the sub- 
ject of the first English settlement in America, arising from 
the interest awakened by the celebration of its three hundredth 
.anniversary. 

It should be a cause for congratulation to those who feel an 
interest in the preservation of the historic site of Jamestown to 
know that in January, 1906, the protection of the part of the 
island bank exposed to the attack of the James Eiver was com- 
pleted by extending the sea wall, constructed in 1901, to a 
•point where, according to the author's investigations, was situa- 
ted the southeastern corner of the palisades which inclosed the 
ancient fort town. 

Grateful acknowledgment is hereby made of the valuable 
assistance rendered by Mr. Frank D. Beckham, of Prince Wil- 
liam County, Virginia, in the preparation of this edition, also 
to Mr. Wm. G. Stanard, the erudite Secretary of the Virginia 
Historical Society, for many favors, and his encouragement and 
support. 



CONTENTS 

Page 

Dedication, 3 

Pbeface, 5 - 6 

Introduction, 11-17 

Erroneous opinions of former writers as to the location 
of the town site, and of the extent of its destruction 
by the encroachments of the James. 

Index to " Map of ' Iames Citty ', 1607-1698," 18-20 

References to historic and interesting localities at 
Jamestown, shown on author's map. 

Description of Jamestown Island, 21-24 

Its topography, tides, points of interest, locations, etc. 

Abrasion of the Island, 25-28 

Causes. — Method of determining the rate and extent of 
encroachments on the island by James River. 

Landing Place of the First Settlers, 29-30 

Located from an allusion, in Percy's Discourse, to the 
proximity of the six-fathom curve to the river bank, 
and from a study of the water depths at Jamestown 
Island and the physical characteristics of James 
River. 

Location of First Fort and Town, 31-34 

Description of the first fort. — Old writings interpreted 
show its enlargement from one acre to four acres. 

Locations of Block Houses, 35 

Description of the Town, 36-42 

Class of habitations at different times, and the unavail- 
ing efforts made to promote the town's growth. 

Population of the Town axd Colony, 43-45 

Accessions to population by arrivals of new settlers. — 
Mortality during different periods. — Increase in popu- 
lation of the colony. — Inertia of the town. 

Sufferings of the Early Colonists, 46-49 

Causes of mortality. — Extracts from Frethorne's letter. 

" The New Towne," 50-58 

Method of determining its position from the transcripts 
of old land grants. — Description of the transcripts. — 
References to town's site in old writings. — Positions 
of grounds of governors and other residents. — The 
streets. 

[7] 



CONTENTS. 

"West End of the Town, 59-64 

Positions of roadways, and grounds of prominent resi- 
dents. 
Chuech Buildings and Origin al Graveyard of the 

" Mother Christian Towne," 65-74 

Method of determining the positions of the several 
former church buildings and the graveyard, from 
available data. — Excavation of foundations of churches 
and what they revealed. — Description of the brick 
church of 1639 - 1647. — Tombs and graves within the 
church. 

The Colonial Legislature, 75-76 

Remarks on. 

James City State Houses, 77-97 

Determination of positions of the several former state 
houses, and descriptions. — When built and de- 
stroyed. — Inns and residences used as state houses. 

The Turf and Brick Forts, 98 - 102 

Positions how determined. — References to by Mr. Rich- 
ard Randolph, Louis Hue Girardin and Rev. John 
Clayton. — No picture of ancient Jamestown extant. 

Historical Summary of the Jamestown Period, 104 - 131 

Important occurrences during the terms of the presi- 
dents and governors, including brief accounts of Ba- 
con's Rebellion of 1676 and of the Tobacco Plant Cut- 
ting Riots of 1682. 
The English and Virginians of the Seventeenth Cen- 
tury, 132 - 143 

Persecution of non-conformists and punishment of 
witches. — Newspapers.' — Education of women. — Con- 
dition of art, medical science and music. — Games, 
wages, articles of diet. — Laws and penalties. — The 
English courts and judiciary. — Class of settlers in 
Virginia. — Early life in Virginia. — Money, means of 
communication. — Silk culture, glass making, dwelling 
houses, diet, dress. — The development of the Vir- 
ginian. 

Appendix, 144 - 148 

Details of method used in constructing map of " The 

New Towne " from the old land grant transcripts. 

Note. — The Ambler MSS. and " The Site of Old ' James 

Towne,' 1607 - 1698," 149-151 

Allusions to, and comments on the Ambler Papers. 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



From original measurements, drawings and photographs by the 

author. 

Frontispiece. — The Brick Church of 1639 restored. To face page. - 

Map of " Iames Citty," Va., 1607 - 1698, 18 ~ 

Constructed from studies of ancient land grants. 

The Sea Wall, 25- 

Ruins of Chuech Structures, 66 

In tee Church Yard, 69 " 

A sycamore centenarian, tomb of Rev. James Blair. 

The Church Tower Ruin 72 

The Mysterious Tablet, 74 

Ancient Foundations at Jamestown, Va., „ 87 

The state house, 1667 - 1698, Phillip Ludwell's three houses 
and " The Country House." 

Section of State House Foundations Excavated in 1903, 90 

Captain John Smith's Coat of Arms, 98 

Portraits : 

Captain John Smith, 104 

Lord Thomas La Warr, third Baron Delaware, first governor 

of Virginia under the London Company, 110 

Sir Edwin Sandys, second governor of the London Com- 
pany, and Sir Henry Wriothesley, third Earl of South- 
ampton, third governor of the London "Company, 114 

James the First, Charles the First and Charles the Second, 

of England, 133- 

James the Second and William and Mary, 137- 

Plat of the Tracts, 145 

Constructed from descriptions of surveys in old land grant 

transcripts at Richmond. 
Patent to William Sherwood, 1694, including land covering 
part of the site of Jamestown. — From the Ambler MSS., . . 150 - 

[9] 



The Site of Old "James Towne," 

(1607-1698) 



BY SAMUEL H. YONGE. 



Introduction. 

JjfT was the author's privilege to have charge, under the direc- 
Sn tion of the United States Engineer Department in 1900 
f=p> and 1901, of the work of protecting Jamestown Island 
from the encroachments of James Eiver. 

Before proceeding with the above work an attempt was made 
to learn the cause and extent of the encroachments. The for- 
mer was soon discovered to be abrasion by wave action, while 
the latter, on account of the available evidence being meager and 
uncertain, could not be satisfactorily determined. 

The abraded area at first appeared to be upwards of fifty acres, 
having its greatest width, about three-eighths of a mile, at the 
northwestern extremity of the island. 

While the protection work was under construction new evi- 
dence offered, in the light of which the above area appeared too 
large. This led to making personal researches among all avail- 
able sources of information, which occupied the leisure moments 
of a period of two years. 

The results of the above investigation, with regard to the site 
of the former town, presented in the accompanying monograph, 
are at variance with the statements of other modern writers. 

There are but two descriptions available of the island and 
town after the latter had passed beyond the transitional stage of 
a military post, by writers of the time having a personal knowl- 
edge of the localities; one by an anonymous writer in about 

[11] 



12 THE SITE OE OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

1676, the other ten years later by the Eev. John Clayton. Both 
descriptions are quite incomplete. Supplemented by informa- 
tion from other sources, however, they have considerable value, 
especially that by Mr. Clayton. 

In the description of the town by Mr. Eichard Eandolph, the 
antiquarian, published in 1849, in the Virginia Historical Reg- 
ister, Vol. II, pages 138 and 139, occurs the following: 

" I will only add that the great body of the town, which, how- 
ever, was never very large, was certainly west of the Old Steeple 
still visible, and is now entirely, or very nearly, submerged in 
the river. This is clearly proved by the old deeds for lots in the 
town recorded in the office of James City County Court, which 
call for bounds that are now under water, and more palpably, by 
vast numbers of broken bricks and other relics of building that 
may still be seen in the western bank' at low tide." 

It is evident from the above quotation that Mr. Eandolph was 
not aware of the fact now disclosed that after about 1623 the 
greater part of the village was east of the tower ruin. The 
reasons for his belief that almost the entire town was west of the 
ruin were probably the following: During about the last three 
and a half decades of the town's existence the public buildings, 
as will be shown in the following pages, were west of the tower, 
on which fact, no doubt, the tradition was founded that the 
whole town was in that neighborhood; and, as only the western 
bank of the island was subsequently attacked by the waves, and 
consequently the foundations of former buildings of that quarter 
alone were exposed to view by abrasion of the bank, the above 
tradition was apparently confirmed; further, after the last state 
house and other buildings were burned in 1698, the standing 
parts of buildings in the entire town were, in the course of time, 
obliterated by the town site being put under cultivation and the 
brick formerly composing the buildings being removed; and, 
finally, on account of the long interval — a century and a half — 
between the town's abandonment as the seat of government, by 
which its few inhabitants, composed principally of resident state 
officials and tavern keepers, were compelled to remove, and that 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 13 

of a revival of any very great interest in the town, the traditions 
depended on for fixing its position had become dim and defective. 

From what follows it appears that writers of later date than 
Mr. Eandolph accepted and reflected his views, without proper 
investigation. 

According to Bishop Meade, in his Old Churches and Families 
of Virginia, Vol. I, page 111, the town was situated between 
the existing tower ruin and the upper extremity of the island, 
its eastern end being a short distance (one hundred and fifty 
yards) above the ruin, which he places at about a mile below the 
northern end of the isthmus. He also states in effect that the 
part of the island above alluded to had been encroached on by 
the river, thereby implying that the greater part of the town site 
had been washed away, and that traces of the town were visible 
at low tide in front of the island bank, i. e., the western bank, 
which was the part abraded. 

From the brief description of the town by the late Edward 
Duffield jSTeill, D. D., contained on page 203, Virginia Carolo- 
rum, published in 1886, it would appear that he, too, believed 
it to have been at the western extremity of the island. He also 
states that the quarter called " the New Towne " had been de- 
stroyed by the encroachments of the river. 

Dr. John Fiske informs us in Virginia and Her Neighbors, 
Vol. II, page 120, published in 1896, that more than half of the 
town site has been destroyed. 

The deductions of Dr. Lyon Gardner Tyler regarding the 
location of the town site, as set forth in the first edition of 
The Cradle of the Republic are in line with those of other 
authors. 

The unquestioned views of the above-mentioned writers that 
the town was west of the church tower ruin and that the greater 
part of it had been engulfed by the river were accepted as cor- 
rect in beginning the investigation of the subject. As no 
information was available in historical works as to the extent 
and shape of the abrasion of the island shore, a study was 
made of the old records of seventeenth century land grants at 



14 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

" James Citty." From these grants, principally, it was learned 
that the town bordered not only the western shore of the island 
immediately above the tower, but also the adjacent southern 
shore below for a greater distance, with a total frontage on 
the river of about three-fourths of a mile. 

The patents also show that the quarter of the town referred 
to in them as the " New Towne " was of a permanent and not of 
an ephemeral character, and that for many years after its 
establishment, about 1623, was the most important part of the 
corporation. The most notable events and incidents of the 
first two and last three decades of the town's history, however, 
occurred at and west of the church still marked by the tower 
ruin. 

The Cradle of the Republic is the only work in which an 
attempt is made to describe the location of the town. On pages 
19 and 40 of that work (the first edition) the Back Street of 
" The New Towne " is placed on a ridge about 250 yards 
northwesterly from the tower ruin, and on pages 53 and 54, a 
one-acre tract acquired by William Sherwood in 1681 and a 
tract belonging to Henry Hartwell in 1688 are located in the 
same vicinage. If these locations were correct, the town must 
always have been west of the tower ruin. In the following 
chapters it will be shown that " The New Towne " with its 
"Back Street," probably so named on account of being back 
from the water front or behind the town, and Sherwood's and 
Hartwell's lots, were east, instead of west of the tower ruin, 
and towards the eastern end of the town. The Hartwell tract, 
as shown on the " Map of lames Citty " accompanying, was 
about five hundred yards east of the tower, on the southern 
water front, instead of two hundred and fifty yards west, as 
given by Dr. Tyler in the above-mentioned work. 

In the description of the town during Sir Thomas Grates' 
first term (1611), Vol. II, page 529, Economic History of 
Virginia in the Seventeenth Century, by Philip Alexander 
Bruce, the building of a bridge is construed to mean that the 
structure connected the island with the mainland. This would 



THE SITE OF OLD cc JAMES TOWNE." 15 

have created an easy means for the Indians to reach the island 
and attack the settlers. As will be shown further on, the 
" bridge " was merely a wharf. 

According to Bishop Meade, in his Old Churches and 
Families of Virginia, the island was connected with the main- 
land by a causeway on the site of the former isthmus about the 
middle of the eighteenth century. The causeway appears to 
have been a pile trestle which was constructed in the first half 
of the nineteenth century. It was destroyed by a storm after 
standing a few years. During the latter half of the eighteenth 
century there was a ferry at the site of the isthmus, which was 
probably used by Lord Cornwallis for crossing his army to the 
island while on his way south in July, 1781. About this time 
he worsted " the boy " Lafayette in a spirited skirmish on the 
mainland between Green Spring and the island and came here 
near capturing him. 

In constructing the chart of the town and its environs, the 
localities where a number of historic scenes were enacted were 
fixed, also the locations, with greater or less exactness, of the 
grounds or dwellings of a number of the former residents, the 
sites of two of the town's three forts and of several of its public 
buildings. 

There being no definite information available for determining 
the positions of the western bank of the head of the island dur- 
ing the Jamestown period, of the original paled town, also of 
the first fort and early graveyard, it was necessary to depend on 
reasonable conjecture. On account of not being based on data 
of a definite character, as are most of the other localities treated 
of, this part of the investigation is offered with a measure of dif- 
fidence. The deductions, however, are believed to be warranted 
by the evidence. Unfortunately, there is nothing to show who 
owned the land around the church tower anterior to 1683, 
where, according to this investigation, before the " New Towne " 
was established, the earliest town was situated. 

The positions of the third and fourth state houses, and the 
grounds of several persons conspicuous in the affairs of the 



16 THE SITE OF OLD JAMES TOWNE. 

colony towards the close of the town's career are, however, 
fixed in and near this older quarter of the town. 

A description of the town would be incomplete without some 
reference to its most interesting feature, the first Anglican 
church in America. Brief descriptions of the several church 
structures of " James Citty " parish, erected at " James Citty," 
are therefore included. 

As the page of the Virginia Land Patent Eecords containing 
transcripts of two of the earliest patents, viz: to Sir George 
Yeardley, Knight, and Captain Eoger Smith, are missing, it 
was necessary, for locating the tracts they represented, to depend 
on the meager information contained in the Patent Eecord In- 
dex, and the renditions of the missing transcripts as contained 
in the writings of other investigators, which are not very satis- 
factory. 

An appendix comprises the details, in as comprehensive form 
as possible, of the method of establishing the position of "the 
New Towne." The plats of several grants which have been 
located in " the New Towne " are omitted from the " Map of 
lames Citty," as by introducing them those of greater antiquity 
and interest would be covered, and confusion created in the 
different lines. The parts of some of the plats which extend 
beyond the limits of the town are also omitted. 

All dates are given according to Old Style. 

The occasion seems opportune for informing the reader that 
the credit of rescuing from oblivion and preserving some of the 
most important ancient landmarks of Virginia, including James- 
town, is entirely due to the Association for the Preservation of 
Virginia Antiquities. Organized and administered by ladies of 
the " Old Dominion," the association is not only arousing an 
ever-increasing interest in events of colonial days, which en- 
genders a spirit of true patriotism, but in spite of a slender ex- 
chequer, is achieving remarkable results in preserving historic 
landmarks. 

After exhausting all available sources of information about the 
town, it is found that a great deal is lacking to make a knowl- 



' V *;W 



Wmtw 




MAP OF IAMES CI1 fY, VA. 

1607 - 16Q8. P9WPomT 

__ ^ Constructed From 

^M ANCIENT RECORDS ^iJlt&lt 

*£gS BY 

jf Saml. H.Vonge, Civil Engineer. 

tl SCALE 

1000 fCIT 

^Mt* $ c K ^ 



e <>^ 



Richard James 
1654 



%y^ 



^ 











ca ptdin Roger 

^Governor 
Francis W*"' 
39 3 JB, 






IAMES CITTY ISLAND ^tPpg^V |gg| _ ; 

SCALE 'vjRTr^^^^^^ 




The ■Site of O/d i/ames To^ne, /607-/69S. 



Copyr/ght. /907 Ay ■Samue/ H. Yonge. 



THE SITE OF OLD JAMES TOWNE. 



17 



edge of the subject complete and satisfactory. This much, how- 
ever, is learned, that the town, even though measured by what 
would appear to be a standard of its time, was small, poor and 
insignificant. This fact invests the place with the deepest inter- 
est, when it is remembered that from such a small beginning in 
the wilderness has sprung what bids fair to become, if not so 
already, the greatest nation of the earth. 

Three centuries have elapsed since the laying of the corner- 
stone of the nation's foundation. How striking the contrast 
between then and now, in the mode of living, in the knowledge 
of the sciences and the liberal arts, and in the supersedure of 
intolerance and blind superstition by freedom of conscience and 
enlightenment ! 




Index to 
"Map of James Citty, Ya., 1607-1698." 

A — First Ridge, " Block House Hill," belonging to John Bauld- 

win in 1656. 
B — Second ridge, containing tracts of Eichard James, John 

Bauldwin, Eev. Thomas Hampton, et al. 
C — Third ridge, on which stood the third and fourth state houses. 
D — Fourth ridge, on which the town was principally situated, 
a, a, a, a — Jetties constructed in 1895-96 to protect island bank. 
1 — Approximate position of western shore line of island, 1600- 

1700. 
2 — Present shore line of mainland above the island. 
3 — Bridge across Back River on road to "Williamsburg. 
4 — Lot of Philip Ludwell, Esq., in 1694, containing the ruins 

of three brick houses. 
5— Third and fourth state houses, 1666 to 1698. 
6—" Country House," in 1694. 
7 — Part of foundations of building reputed to have been a 

powder magazine. 
8 — Site of brick fort constructed between 1670 and 1676. 
9 — The lone cypress. 
10 — Approximate position of northerly line between Eichard 

James and John Bauldwin in 1657. 
11 — Approximate site of tract of Eichard Saunders, 1644. 
12 — Approximate site of tract of Edward Challis, 1643. 
13 — Approximate site of tract of Eadulph Spraggon, 1644. 
14 — Approximate site of tract of Geo. Gilbert, 1643. 
15 — Probable outline of original paled four-acre town, shown 

by red lines. 
16 — Tract of Edward Chilton, Attorney-General, 1683. 
17— Tract of Wm. Edwards, Sr., 1690. 

[18] 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 19 

18 — Piles of former bridge between island and mainland, con- 
structed during first half of nineteenth century 

19— Tract of John Howard, 1694. 

20 — Tract of Nathaniel Bacon, Sr., 1694. Contains foundation 
of chimney. 

21 — Confederate fort constructed in 1861. 

22 — Ancient tower ruin, inclosed part of old graveyard, and 
foundation of third, fourth and fifth churches. 

23 — Probable site of triangular fort constructed in 1607, 
designated in 18th century MS, " Fort Hill." 

24 — Probable site of "bridge" (wharf), constructed by Dale in 
1611. 

25 — Probable landing place of first settlers, May 14, 1607, 
indicated by red flags. 

26 — Approximate site of blockhouse, built by Captain Eichard 
Stephens in 1624, and probable site of Berkeley's trench. 

27 — Confederate redoubt commanding Back Eiver, constructed 
in 1861. 

28 — Modern ditch draining " Pitch and Tarr Swamp." 

29 — Boundary lines of tract belonging to the Association for the 
Preservation of Virginia Antiquities. 

30 — "The old state house" (approximate), used from about 
1630 to 1656, on one-acre tract, of which part was sold 
to Ludwell and Stegg in 1667. Most probably contained 
Gov. Harvey's residence prior to 1641, Gov. Berkeley's 
residence prior to 1656 and subsequently Gov. Bennett's 
residence. 

31 — Ruins of building on site of Ambler-Jaquelin messuage. 

32— Tract of John Chew, 1624. 

33 — Tract of Captain Eichard Stephens, 1623. 

34 — Tract of Captain Ealph Hamor, 1624, Secretary of State 
and chronicler. 

35 — Site of the turf fort, erected probably about 1663. 

36 — Cross streets connecting " the way along the Maine River " 
and the Back Street. 

37— Tract of George Menefy, 1624, member of the Council of 
State. 



20 THE SITE OF OLD "JAMES TOWNE." 

38 — The " way along the Greate river," or " Maine river." 

39 — Cart track " leading to Island House/' in 1665. 

40 — Causeway over swamp formerly connecting part of island 
containing " the new towne " with the second ridge. 

41 — One-acre tract bought by William Sherwood in 1681, " on 
which formerly stood the brick house formerly called the 
Country House," and later, probably Sherwood's resi- 
dence. 

42 — Jamestown Island wharf. 

43 — Probable site of tract of Eichard Clarke, 1646. 

44 — The "main cart path." 

45—" The old Greate Eoad," in 1694. 

46 — Ancient graveyard. 

47 — Point where skeletons were exposed by bank abrasion in 
1895. 

48— Shore line of 1903. 

49 — Traces of house foundations. Probable site of Eichard 
Lawrence's dwelling about 1676. 

N". B. Broken lines on map indicate approximate boundaries, etc 




Description of Jamestown Island. 

fAMESTOWN" Island is situated in James Eiver, sixty- 
eight and three-fourths miles below the head of tidewater, 
at the foot of the Eichmond rapids, and fifty-eight miles 
above the Virginia capes. 

No ancient charts of the island and town of the Jamestown 
period (1607-1698), have been discovered. "The Draughte 
by Eoberte Tindall, of Virginia, Anno 1608," and " Chart of 
Virginia," sent to Philip III of Spain in the same year by Zu- 
niga to accompany the report of Francisco Maguel, 1 " the Irish- 
man," a spy in the service of Spain, and published in The 
Genesis of the United States, although possessing some merit as 
reconnoisance sketches, prove to be inaccurate on comparison 
with modern maps, and furnish information of but little value 
as to the shape of the island and the site of the town. 

The island, thus invariably designated in the old land patents, 
and so referred to in Ealph Hamor's Discourse, and other an- 
cient writings, is two and three-fourths miles long, with a width 
varying from about three hundred yards at its head to about one 
and one-fourth miles near its lower extremity. It was formerly 
connected at its upper extremity with the mainland by a narrow 
neck, which being at a much lower elevation than the island, 
constituted an isthmus only at ordinary tides. What appear to 
be traces of the isthmus are found at one to two feet below low 
tide, just west of the piling of an old trestle bridge, which for- 
merly connected the island with the mainland. The bridge was 
destroyed by a storm over fifty years ago. As compared with 
the neighboring mainland, the general elevation of the island is 
low. 

Adjoining the head of the island is a marsh, which is referred 
to in the old land patents as " belonging to the Back river." 

The head of the island is composed of three ridges and part 

1 His name was probably Francis McGill. 

[21] 



22 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

of a fourth, marked on accompanying map A, B, C, D, having 
an easterly trend, and rising to about twelve to sixteen feet 
above low tide. Between the three uppermost ridges are narrow 
marshes or slashes. The slash between the first and second 
formerly connected with Back Eiver only, but by the abrasion of 
the western shore of the island it would now connect James Eiver 
with the Back Eiver were it not for the recently constructed sea 
wall. Between the second and third ridges is a slash or branch 
of a large swamp situated near the middle of the island and ex- 
tending easterly to the Back Eiver. It drains into Spratley's 
Bay, and was anciently referred to as " the Pitch and Tarr 
Swamp." (See Map, Sketch of lames Citty Island.) About 
two hundred yards inland from the western shore of the island 
the above slash becomes the boundary between the second and 
fourth ridges. 

The boundary between the third and fourth ridges is " a 
little vale," which, near the river bank, is two to three feet above 
high tide. This valley, as will appear later, contained near its 
former river end a brick fort constructed towards the close of 
the seventeenth century. The head of the fourth ridge is re- 
ferred to in an eighteenth century MS. as Fort Hill. Here the 
ground rises quite rapidly to an elevation of about ten feet, and 
for two small areas to fourteen feet above low tide, forming two 
knolls, one at the tower ruin and the other in the Confederate 
fort of 1861. The two knolls were probably "the two Moun- 
taines," on which Percy informs us, in his Discourse, " was sowne 
most of our Corne." The western extremities of the above 
ridges, as is shown below, prior to the last two centuries extended 
four or five hundred feet beyond the present island bank. 

Below the fourth ridge is a narrow slash, now partly filled 
with sand, another branch of the main swamp, in which there is 
a minute stream referred to in the ancient patents as " Orchard 
Eun," draining the swamp into the river (see sketch of " lames 
Citty Island"). East of the last mentioned slash is a ridge, 
also having an easterly trend. East of the above ridge and ex- 
tending to James Eiver is a branch of a great marsh, referred to 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 23 

below. Next follows a series of seven low ridges, forming 
collectively what was anciently known as Goose Hill. The 
Goose Hill ridges are separated by slashes of the extensive marsh 
above referred to, lying north and east of them, named Goose 
Hill marsh. It is drained into James Eiver by Passmore's or 
Paschmore's Creek. 

Goose Hill is a hill only in the same relative sense that the 
two knolls where the English wheat was planted were mountains. 
The fourth ridge has a larger area of good soil above extreme 
high tide than the other ridges at the head of the island. The 
Back Eiver, which is referred to in many of the old patents, 
forms the northern boundary of the island. Although its chan- 
nel is from seven to twenty-three feet deep, the depth on the bar 
in Spratley's Bay, into which it empties, is but four feet ; ample, 
however, for the crossing of the "friggett," from which the 
landing in Back Eiver near the head of the island was named, 
and of whose coming the town's people were apprised by a 
musical note, as the vessel rounded " Pyping Point," 2 

Above the Back Eiver was situated " Sandy Bay," having the 
isthmus for its western and " Powhatan Swamp " for its eastern 
boundary, and receiving on the north the flow of Powhatan 
Creek. Near the northeastern shore of the bay, about a mile 
from "James Towne," was situated what is believed to have 
been the first American glass works, in which beads were manu- 
factured for trading with the Indians. 

As will appear later, the two branches of " Pitch and Tarr 
Swamp " above mentioned were the upper and lower limits of 
the principal part of " James Citty." A line of stumps, visible 
at low tide, extending shoreward from a solitary cypress stand- 
ing two hundred and seventy feet from the recently constructed 
sea wall, probably indicates the former position of the head of 
the upper branch of the swamp, where, as will be shown further 
on, a tract of land was granted in 1696 to Lieutenant Edward 
Eoss. 

2 The point was located by platting a patent to Richard James 
(Virginia Land Patent Records, Book III, p. 368). 



24 



THE SITE OF OLD JAMES TOWNE. 



The mean tidal range at Jamestown Island is but twenty-two 
inches. Great tides, however, rising to seven or eight feet 
above low water, are occasionally caused by gales from between 
south and east. Whenever the tide rose slightly above its nor- 
mal level, the isthmus was submerged. During great tides there 
is a flow from the river through the depression between the third 
and fourth ridges into the upper branch of the swamp. 3 

3 By the extension of the sea wall in 1905 and 1906, this flow is 
prevented. 




* 





Abrasion of the Island. 

'NTIL 1901, the length of the western bank exposed to 
abrasion was about a half mile. In the above year 
about half of the exposed bank was protected by the sea 
wall before mentioned. This part of the wall ended at 
the third ridge, thus fortunately protecting from the encroach- 
ments of the river the ground which two years later was found 
to contain the old state house foundations. The shore of the 
mainland from a short distance above the island to the 
Chickahominy Eiver, a distance of about six miles, is being 
abraded, and there are unmistakable signs of this action being 
operative for a very long period in the past. There is very 
good evidence that this bank was being abraded by the waves as 
early as 1686. The above shore, on account of its projection, 
originally formed a natural protection for the island headland, 
and by its recession the latter became exposed to wave action. 

It would hardly seem possible that the abrasion of the island 
was in progress as early as 1686, or even in 1696, as in the 
latter year a grant of land, situated on its western bank, con- 
tiguous to and below the upper branch of " Pitch and Tarr 
Swamp " was made to Lieutenant Edward Boss, 1 before alluded 
to. It seems probable that the island was not attacked by the 
river before 1700. Under this assumption, therefore, the whole 
period of the island's abrasion to the time of its protection in 
1901, would be two hundred and one years. Observation of 
the bank in recent years shows that its annual rate of recession 
has been about four feet. Prior to the extensive use of side 
wheel steamers on James Eiver, probably about 1860, and when 
occasional strong winds between west and north were the sole 
destroying agents, the rate probably did not exceed two feet. 
Applying the above rates for forty years and one hundred and 

1 Virginia Land Patent Records, Book IX, p. 49. 

[25] 



26 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNS." 

sixty-one years respectively, the total width of the prism of 
abrasion would amount to about 482 feet. 

From the data contained in the following quotation from 
Amoenitates Graphicae, a magazine edited by Professor Louis 
Hue Girardin, in 1803/ "many yards of the palisades erected 
by the first settlers are yet to be seen at a low tide standing at 
least 150 to 200 paces from the present shore/' it would appear 
that the annual rate of abrasion, assuming the pace at thirty 
inches, was about twice that given above. Professor Girardin's 
description, however, shows that he was not accustomed to esti- 
mating distances, and his figures, therefore, do not appear to 
have any value. 

As the time when the abrasion began and its rate from time 
to time are unknown, no reliable deduction can be made as 
to the exact position of the western shore of the island in the 
seventeenth century. 

From the Edward Eoss patent, the direction of the shore for 
two hundred and fifteen feet, immediately below the head of the 
upper branch of " Pitch and Tarr Swamp/' is learned to have 
then been about S. 3° W. (corrected for declination) or about 
the same as that of the present western shore at the third ridge. 

In 1891 there still remained, about sixty yards above the 
Confederate fort, the lower part of the island headland, pro- 
jecting about thirty yards from the general line of the shore and 
forming a sharp point, modernly known as " Church Point." 
The lower side of the point in the above year furnishes the 
general direction of the southern shore of the headland. 

In the account of the bi-centenary celebration at Jamestown 
Island in 1807, it is stated that the "Lady Washington/' one 
of the visiting vessels, anchored " in a beautiful cove in the form 
of a crescent, which stretching on either side afforded a safe and 
expanded bason." 8 

2 Foot note, page 8, Report of the Proceedings of the Late Jubilee 
at James-Town (in 1807). 

3 Report of the Proceedings of the Late Jubilee at James-Town, p. 7. 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 27 

The point above mentioned, then projecting several hundred 
feet further westward than the present shore, undoubtedly 
formed the head of the cove. Its foot was about five-eighths of a 
mile below its head, and is marked by an old abandoned wharf 
which was in use in 1861. The shore of the cove below the new 
wharf remains about as it was when the island was first settled. 

The description of a course in the survey notes of a patent to 
William Sherwood 4 " and by the same [Back Eiver] to Sandy 
Bay, to a persimmon tree under Block House Hill, thence under 
the said hill six chains to James Eiver/' shows that the head of 
the island at the southern end of the isthmus was about 200 feet 
wide. 

From patents issued to Alexander Stonar in 1637, and to 
Eiehard Sanders in 1644, for land situated on the first ridge; to 
Edward Challis in 1643, to Eadulph Spraggon in 1644, and to 
John Bauldwin in 1656/ on the second ridge, it would appear 
that the general direction of the western bank of the island at 
its upper extremity was approximately the same as it is to-day. 
On account of incomplete descriptions, the true positions of the 
above tracts cannot be determined. As even their approximate 
locations give them some value, they are shown on the map. 
From a reference in the Spraggon patent the approximate posi- 
tion of part of " the way leading towards the mayne," near the 
head of the island, is established. 

From the preceding data the shape of the head of the island 
during the " James Citty " period, as exhibited on the map, was 
determined. 

Since the first settlement of the island by the English, prob- 
ably twenty acres at its western extremity have been lost by 
abrasion. The abraded area comprises principally parts of the 
uppermost three ridges, and a very small proportion of the 
fourth ridge. The tidal currents at Jamestown are too light to 
erode the clay of which the banks at the head of the island are 

4 Va. Land Pat. Records, Book VII, p. 384, et seq. 
5 Va. Land Pat. Records, Book I, p. 466; Book II, pp. 11, 12; Book 
IV, p. 88. 



28 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE. 



formed. Wave action developed in the long reach of wide 
water extending in a northwesterly direction has been the de- 
stroying agent, the waves from every passing steam vessel con- 
tributing to the work of destruction. 

Prom the observation of the height of waves at Jamestown 
Island, it seems evident that their abrading effect does not 
reach to greater depths than three or four feet below low water. 
The one fathom curve on the map, therefore, is considerably 
west of the extreme outer limits of the western shore line during 
the " James Citty " period. 




Landing Place 
of the First Settlers. 

>HE trough of the channel off the head of the island has 
steep sides, and is from fifty to ninety feet deep. As it 
lies in a bed of dense, tough clay, the scouring effect of 
the light currents of the locality, continuing even for 
centuries, should be very slight. From the deposition of 
material worn from the island and the shore above, there has 
probably been a slight diminution of depth during the past 
three hundred years in the thalweg or deepest part of the chan- 
nel, but little or none on its sides. The above remark is in- 
tended to apply particularly to the vicinity of Jamestown 
Island. At other localities on James Eiver battures have 
formed under projecting points between the trough of the 
channel and the shores. 

The hydrographic contours off the western shore of the island 
show the channel gradually nearing that shore from above until 
it approaches to within about one hundred and seventy-five yards 
of it, at about three hundred yards above the tower ruin (see con- 
tours on map). Below the ruin it gradually leaves the island 
and opposite the former site of the turf fort, hereinafter re- 
ferred to, is about three hundred and fifty yards from the shore. 
The contours also exhibit a stretch of channel upwards of two 
hundred and fifty feet long at the point of divergence above the 
tower ruin, having its north side steeper than elsewhere in the 
above reach of river. 

According to the rate of abrasion above determined the western 
shore of the island extended to the part of the channel having 
the steep sides during the seventeenth century. 

According to Master George Percy's Discourse, the ships, at 
the first landing place of the settlers, were moored to trees 
standing on the river bank, contiguous to which the water depth 

[29] 



30 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE. 

was six fathoms. The modern contours of the channel, as has 
been pointed out, cannot differ materially from those existing 
when the first settlement was made. The part of the side of the 
channel, therefore, which is steepest, and to which the island 
bank formerly extended, is manifestly the spot where the settlers 
debarked May 14, 1607, and of which Percy wrote, " where our 
shippes doe lie so neere the shoare that they are moored to the 
Trees in six fathom water." 

The landing was well selected for convenience of discharging 
the ship's cargoes and very few similarly suitable exist on James 
Eiver. As Archer's Hope, on the mainland opposite the lower 
end of the island, was regarded as a very desirable location for 
the first settlement, and was rejected only on account of its 
shore being made inaccessible to Newport's vessels by shallow 
water the day before the island was selected, it is apparent that 
the ease of discharging the vessels' cargoes directly on the river 
bank outweighed many other far more important considerations 
in deciding on the abiding place of the settlers. 




Location of Fikst Fort and Town. 

>HE first fort, "which was triangle wise, having three Bul- 
warkes at every corner like a halfe Moone and foure or 
five pieces of Artillerie mounted in them," was com- 
pleted June 15 — the 31st day after the first settlers 
disembarked. 1 As there is no information extant as to the site 
of the first fort, that detail will have to be arrived at induc- 
tively. It was not at the original landing place, for, from the 
letter of Sir Thomas Dale, of May 25, 1611,' "to the President 
and Counsell of the Companie of Adventurers and Planters in 
Virginia," it is learned that immediately after his arrival at 
James Towne to succeed Lord La Warr as deputy governor, " a 
bridge to land our goods safe and dry upon," i. e., a wharf, was 
constructed by Captain Newport and "his Mariners." The 
construction of this wharf is alluded to in the " Breife Decla- 
ration," 3 as follows : 

"A framed Bridge was alsoe then erected, [during Sir Thomas 
Smith's administration] which utterly decayed before the end 
of Sir Thomas Smith's government, that being the only bridge 
(any way soe to be called) that was ever in the country." 

Prom the above it is obvious that the water was too shallow 
for vessels to lie against the shore in front of the fort, which, 
therefore, as above stated, was not at the original landing-place. 
It was, however, probably not far distant, for if otherwise, the 
settlers, with their limited means of carriage, would have been 
at great labor in moving their equipment, stores and ordnance. 
A natural site for the fort would have been just east of the 
" little vale " at the upper extremity of the fourth ridge. Thus 
situated, the guns of its north bastion would have swept the 

x Percy's Discourse. 

1 The Genesis of the United States, p. 488. 

8 A Breife Declaration of the Plantation of Virginia, &c, McDonald 
Papers, Vol. I, pp. 103-142. 

[31] 



32 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

branch of the swamp below and of the vale above, while those of 
its east and west bastions would have commanded the river 
front and the channel approaching from below, as did the guns 
of its successor, the Confederate fort of 1861. In the above 
described position the part of the branch of the swamp between 
the second and fourth ridges would have afforded additional pro- 
tection against the Indians. The third ridge was possibly 
strategically as favorable as the fourth, but its crest is two feet 
lower and its area above the level of great tides much smaller. 
It was, therefore, not as well adapted to the needs of the first 
settlers. 

In excavating earth in 1861, at the head of the fourth ridge 
near the Confederate fort for its construction, pieces of armor 
and weapons of the early " James Towne " period were found, 
a good indication that the fort of 1607 was located about as 
above described. From the shore in front of it a wharf only 
about two hundred feet long would have been required to reach 
water twelve feet deep. 

The parade ground where " the whole Company every Satur- 
day exercised, in the plaine by the west Bulwarke, prepared for 
that purpose " * * * " where sometimes more than an 
hundred Salvages would stand in an amazement to behold, how 
a iyle would batter a tree, where he [Captain John Smith] would 
make them a marke to shoot at," * was on the plateau at the 
head of the fourth ridge between the western curtain of the tri- 
angular fort and the " little vale." As shown on the map, it was 
three hundred feet long and upwards of one hundred feet wide. 

From the " Breife Declaration," it is learned that " After this 
first supplie" [January, 1608], "there were some few poore 
howses built, & entrance made in cleeringe of grounde to the 
quantitye of foure acres for the whole Collony, hunger & sick- 
ness not permittinge any great matters to be donne that yeare." 
It does not seem probable that the clearing, on account of its 
small area, was made for agricultural purposes, for while Captain 

* Works, Captain John Smith, p. 433. 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 33 

John Smith was president, probably in the spring of 1609, or 
about a year after the clearing of the four acres was begun, thirty 
or forty acres of ground were worked and planted. 5 Whatever 
may have been the purpose for which the four-acre tract was in- 
tended, it is evident from what follows that it, or some other 
tract of the same area, was subsequently surrounded by a stock- 
ade and formed the town. 

Further on in the same narrative by the " ancient planters " 
appears the following : " Fortification against a foreign enemy 
there was none, only two or three peeces of ordinance mounted, 
& against a domestic [enemy] noe other but a pale inclosinge 
the Towne, to the quantitye of foure acres within which those 
buildings that weare erected, could not in any man's judgement, 
neither did stand above five yeares & that not without con- 
tinuall reparations." 

The part of the "Declaration" from which the above is ex- 
tracted is ambiguous and obscure, the settlements at Henrico 
near Dutch Gap, about 14 miles below Eichmond, and James 
Towne being described, as it were, in the same breath. It 
would appear, however, from the context that the four acres 
were at the latter place, and this view is indirectly confirmed by 
Ealph Hamor, who, as appears from the following, gives the 
area of Henrico as seven acres ; " and in the beginning of Sep- 
tember, 1611, he [Dale] set from Iamestown, and in a day & a 
halfe, landed at a place where he purposed to seate & builde, 
where he had not bin ten daies before he had very strongly im- 
paled seuen English Acres of ground for a towne." * 

There are no data available giving the slightest clue as to the 
situation of the four acres. It is believed that they included 
the area of one acre covered by the first fort, as it is quite im- 
probable that the settlers had two distinct towns at the same 
place. 

Shortly after Captain John Smith became president of the 

5 Ibid, pp. 154, 471. 

6 A True Discourse of the present estate of Virginia, p. 29. 

3— J. T. 



34 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES T0WNE." 

colony (September, 1608) the plan of the fort was reduced to 
'" a five-square form." 7 This is construed to apply to the form 
of the town, after it was enlarged as noted above. 

The safest and, therefore, the most natural position for the 
three-acre addition, would have been adjoining the eastern bul- 
wark of the triangular fort. From its southern end the minia- 
ture town, fronting the river, probably extended east about one 
hundred yards, thence in a northerly direction to and along the 
eastern wall of the graveyard, thence northwesterly by " the old 
Greate Eoade " given as the eastern boundary of a tract granted 
John Howard in 1694/ and thence westerly by a line which 
subsequently formed the southern boundary of Eichard Law- 
rence's tract, and in the line of its prolongation about at the 
level of great tides — eight feet above low water — to the north 
bastion of the triangular fort, whose western and southern 
bulwarks completed the inclosure. These lines would make the 
fort " a five-square form " or pentagon. " The old Greate Boad," 
judging from its name, was of great antiquity. It was prob- 
ably one of the first roads opened by the settlers, and passed 
along one of the paled sides of the early town, as above de- 
scribed. 

The original triangular fort must have been maintained for 
several years as an inner stronghold of the paled town. Dur- 
ing Strachey's sojourn in the colony, from May, 1610, to the 
fall of 1611, the principal buildings were situated within it. 
The stockade around the part of the town outside of the fort 
proper was probably kept up for some time after the massacre of 
1622, until the settlement gained a sufficient foothold to make it 
unnecessary as a defence against the Indians. 

The greater part of the ground inclosed by the triangular 
fort has been destroyed by the abrasion of the island bank. 

7 Works, Captain John Smith, p. 433. 

s Ya. Land Patent Records, Book VIII, p. 82. 



Locations of Block Houses. 

fOK preventing incursions of the Indians across the isthmus, 
Captain John Smith, in the spring of 1609, " built a 
Blockhouse in the neck of our Isle." This was replaced 
by a similar structure about 1624. The latter is referred 
to in a patent to John Bauldwin in 1656, which locates it 
approximately. It appears, from the patent, that the later 
block house was near the earlier one. The ridge on which the 
block houses were placed, the first ridge, is referred to in the 
patents as Block House Hill. A "bank of earth not a flight 
shot long cast up thwart the neck of the peninsula " by Sir 
William Berkeley, in September, 1676, to oppose the entrance 
of Bacon's men to " James Citty " * must have been situated on 
the north side of Block House Hill at the southern end of the 
isthmus. 

There were also, according to Ralph Hamor, two block 
houses "to observe and watch least the Indians at any time 
should swim over the back river and come into the Island." He 
does not, however, give their locations. They were on the Back 
Eiver, one probably at Friggett Landing, the other below Gov- 
ernor Yeardley's place. 

1 The Beginning, Progress and Conclusion of Bacon's Rebellion in 
Virginia in the years 1675 and 1676, by T. M.— Force's Historical 
Tracts, Vol. I, p. 21. 




[35] 



Description op the Town. 

>HE cluster of huts constituting the habitations of the 
first hundred settlers, enfolded in its chrysalis-like 
stockade, was hardly entitled to the appellation of 
town. The term city, given the collection of unpre- 
tentious brick buildings of a later day, was equally a misnomer. 

For the details of the first structures erected, as of most other 
matters pertaining to the early settlement, Captain John Smith 
is the principal authority. 

As the time of Newport's colony, immediately after its arrival 
in Virginia was occupied in exploring the country, building the 
stockade, and preparing a cargo for the return voyage of the 
ships, the building of quarters was neglected, and those erected 
were inadequate in number and afforded but imperfect shelter. 
The best of them were built of rails and roofed with marsh grass 
thatch covered with earth. 1 According to the "Breife Decla- 
ration," some of the settlers lived in holes in the ground, as is 
sometimes done on the western plains, where they are called 
" dug-outs." 

After Newport's departure, hot weather and general illness of 
the party supervening, the completing of the huts was prevented 
until the fall of 1607. 2 

The first huts were destroyed by fire in January, 1608, and 
were not fully replaced until after Newport's departure for Eng- 
land, in April of that year, 3 about which time the clearing of 
the four acres was begun. 

The huts which replaced those that were burned were more 
comfortable than the latter. Their sides were lined with Indian 

1 Works, Captain John Smith, p. 957. (The references in this 
monograph to " Works, Captain John Smith," are from Prof. Edward 
J Arber's edition.) 

"Ibid, pp. 10, 96, 392. *IMd, pp. 105, 409. 

[36] 



THE SITE OE OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 37 

mats, and the roofs made of boards.* They were apparently 
without floors. Improvements were gradually made in hut 
construction by roofing with the bark of trees so as to shed 
water, probably in the same manner as half cylinder roofing 
tiles are used, and erecting " wide and large country chimnies," 
of wattles plastered with clay. 5 About a year later twenty 
additional houses were added, 8 and, when Captain Smith left the 
settlement in 1609, it had, according to his account, within the 
fort, then equipped with twenty-four guns of different calibers, 
of which, however, probably not over six were mounted in the 
bastions, besides the church and store house, forty or fifty of the 
above huts. 7 Dr. Simmonds states that there were fifty or sixty 
houses within the stockade, 8 where also was situated the well, 
prior to digging which the settlers drank the often brackish 
water of the river. The well water, naturally enough, was filled 
with organic matter. It undoubtedly caused most of the 
malaria and enteric troubles of the settlers. It was found to 
be in an unsanitary condition by Dale in 1611, resulting prob- 
ably from its proximity to the huts. Dale proposed, among 
other improvements to be made in the town, the digging of a 
new well. In 1617 the new well was found to be polluted. 8 

The fort undoubtedly stood above the level of great tides, as 
otherwise, Captain John Smith or others would have referred in 
their writings to the discomforts arising from tidal inundations. 
Judging from the contours of the ground, at or adjoining the 
site of the fort, its elevation was not less than seven or eight 
feet above low water. 10 

i IUd, pp. 502, 503. 6 Purchas His Pilgrimes, Lib. IX, p. 1752. 

6 Works, Captain John Smith, pp. 154, 471. 

'Ibid, p. 612. 8 IUd, p. 486. 

8 Works, Captain John Smith, p. 535. 

10 The depth of the well in the fort is given by Strachey in Pur- 
chas His Pilgrimes at six or seven fathoms. This, evidently, is a 
misprint, and should read six or seven feet. The level of the water in 
wells on the island follows that of the tides. The bottom of an 
ancient well on the third. ridge Js about iy 2 feet below low tide. A 
proper depth fop a well in the fort would probably have been 7 to 
9y 2 feet, depending~oif the elevation of the "ground. 



38 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

According to Strachey, whose writings show that he was well 
grounded in the humanities, although not so well versed in the 
science of numbers, the ground enclosed by the first fort had an 
area of a half-acre. The fort was a stockade about fourteen feet 
high, formed of trees set about four feet in the ground. Its 
south curtain or bulwark was one hundred and forty yards long 
and the other two sides one hundred yards each. It is inferred 
from each of the pales forming a load for two or three men, that 
they were eight to ten inches in diameter. 11 

It is very improbable that the fort had any earthworks. It 
had three entrances or ports, one through each curtain or bul- 
wark, the principal one being through the south curtain. 
Within the stockade, facing each port, was a fieldpiece. 

The huts were arranged in rows parallel to the curtains with 
a street thirty to thirty-six feet wide intervening. Within the 
hollow triangle formed by the lines of huts, and having probably 
an area of about a half acre, were the guard house, the market 
place and the chapel " in length three score f oote in breadth 
twenty-f oure." u 

Dr. Simmonds gives the width of the streets between the lines 
of huts and the palisades at eight to ten yards. 13 

In 1611, Sir Thomas Dale erected a "munition-house," a 
powder-house, a fish-house, a shelter-shed for cattle and a stable, 14 
and a few months later Sir Thomas Gates added a storehouse, 
covering a space of one hundred and twenty by forty feet and a. 
number (not given) of log houses arranged in two rows, some 
of which were two stories and a garret high. About this time 
also the stockade was repaired and a new gun platform placed at 
its western end, presumably at the point of the triangular fort 
known as the west bastion. 15 It is apparent that if all of the 

11 Works, Captain John Smith, p. 612. 

12 Purchas His Pilgrimes, Liber IX, pp. 1752, 1753. 
"Works, Captain John Smith, p. 407. 

14 The Genesis of the United States, p. 492. 
* B Hamor's True Discourse, p. 33. 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 39 

different structures above enumerated were situated within the 
triangular fort, whose area was a small fraction more than one 
acre, there would have remained little or no room for the three 
or four hundred people who sometimes constituted the popula- 
tion. Some of the buildings, therefore, were outside of the 
triangle and in other parts of the paled town. The place must 
now have presented an appearance similar to that of some of our 
earlier frontier posts. 

On account, no doubt, of unseasoned or sappy timber being used 
for the log houses, but five or six remained serviceable in 1617. lft 
No improvements, however, appear to have been made after 
Gates' second administration in 1614, or new buildings added 
except the wooden church last referred to, whose dimensions 
were fifty by twenty feet, until Sir George Yeardley's arrival in 
1619. 

In 1623 there were but twenty-two dwellings at "James 
Citty," a seemingly insufficient number to accommodate the new 
settlers who, on their way to the interior, for several years, had 
been arriving in large numbers. The massacre of 1622 and un- 
favorable reports of the colony published by several unprincipled 
partisans of Sir Thomas Smythe, treasurer or governor of the 
London Company, to create prejudice against and destroy con- 
fidence in the Virginia enterprise under the administrations of 
Sir Edwin Sandys, Smythe's successor, and of the Earl of South- 
ampton, who succeeded Sandys, checked the growth of the 
colony and, to some extent, therefore, that of the town. 

For many years the place apparently made little or no pro- 
gress. On February 20, 1636, a law was enacted by the Grand 
Assembly ir providing for a grant of a house lot and garden plot 
to every settler that would build thereon within six months. A 
similar law was made in 1638, and, as a result, twelve dwellings 
and stores, including the first brick house of the colony, sixteen 

18 Works, Captain John Smith, p. 535. 

17 Virginia Land Patent Records, Book I,p. 689. 



40 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

by twenty-four feet in plan, were erected. Within the year fol- 
lowing all the lots along the town's water front were patented. 18 

The patent records contain eight land grants made within the 
town precincts between 1636 and 1642. 19 In the latter year Sir 
William Berkeley, the new governor, arrived bearing instruc- 
tions from the Eoyal government to rebuild the town with brick 
liouses. According to the instructions every person who, " with- 
in a convenient time," should erect in any town of the colony a 
brick dwelling sixteen by twenty-four feet with a cellar would be 
granted five hundred acres of land. The colonial government 
was also empowered, in view of the existing town having proved 
unhealthy, to build a new one elsewhere, which, however, should 
bear the original name of " James Towne." 20 In March, 1643, 
the Grand Assembly framed a statute, according to which 
builders of houses on deserted lots in "James Citty" would 
acquire a title to the lot built on, provided the back quit rents 
were paid. 21 

The patent transcripts contain twelve issues for town lots be- 
tween 1642 and 1662. At the close of the interregnum in 1661, 
during Sir William Berkeley's second term as governor of Vir- 
ginia, he was again urged by the king to take steps to enlarge 
the town by erecting more houses, the monarch assuring him 
that " Wee will take it very well at their hands if they [the 
members of the colonial council] will each of them build one or 
more houses there." w 

In deference to the king's wish, an act was passed at the next 
ensuing session of the Assembly, inhibiting the building of any 
more wooden houses, and prescribing that there should be 

18 McDonald Papers, Vol. I, pp. 247-249. Governor Harvey and 
Council to Privy Council, January, 1639. 

19 Virginia Land Patent Records, Book I, pp. 466, 587, 588, 595, 
598, 689, 730. Reference is made hereinafter to the incompleteness 
of the records. 

20 Instructions to Governor Berkeley and Council, August, 1641. — > 
McDonald Papers, Vol. I, p. 383. 

^Hening's Statutes, Vol. I, p. 252. 

82 Instructions to Governor Berkeley, McDonald Papers, Vol. I, p. 414. 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 41 

erected at "James Citty" thirty-two brick houses, forty by 
twenty feet in plan inside, apparently two stories high, and 
roofed with slate or tile. 23 Each of the seventeen counties was 
required to build, at its expense, one of the houses. The above 
attempt to force the town's growth was a failure, for in 1676, at 
the outbreak of Bacon's Kebellion, the community held but six- 
teen or eighteen dwellings, most " as is the church built of brick, 
faire and large; and in them a dozen families (for all the houses 
are not inhabited) getting their liveings by keeping of ordinaries 
at extreordinary rates." M The unoccupied houses were some 
of those which had been ordered built by statute of December, 
1662, but had never been completed, 25 most probably on account 
of the poverty of their builders. 

In 1676 the entire town was destroyed by Bacon as a strategic 
measure. 

In 1682, Lord Culpeper, the governor, received instructions 
from England to rebuild, the royal good will being again tend- 
ered, as in the message to Berkeley of 1661, to the members of 
the council and prominent citizens of the town who should ini- 
tiate the work. Two good houses had at that time been erected 
by Colonel Bacon the elder, and others were either under con- 
struction or proposed. Lord Culpeper's reply to the king's mes- 
sage contains a reason for the town's lack of recuperative power. 
" I have given all encouragement possible for the rebuilding of 
James Citty, The Generall Courts, publick offices, and meetings 
of Assemblies having been alwayes kept there, And Greenspring 
(the nearest convenient habitation) My place of Eesidence. But 
there being an Apprehension in many persons that there are 
other places in the Country more proper for a Metropolis, And 
that the aforesaid Act for Building Townes, would make one in 
the most naturall place, there hath not till now of late been Any 
Great Advance therein. As to the proposall of Building Houses 

^Hening's Statutes, Vol II, p. 172. 

^Burwell MS., Force's Historical Tracts, Vol. I, Bacons Proseed- 
ings. 
25 British State Papers, Colonial, No. 62. 



42 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

by those of the Coimcell and the cheefe Inhabitants, It hatn 
been once attempted in vaine, nothing but profitt and advantage 
can doe it, and then there will be noe need of Anything else." M 

In 1697 the number of houses in the town was reported to be 
twenty or thirty. 

In 1698, the royal mandate to build up the town was reiterated 
to Governor Nicholson, but before any steps could be taken to 
act on it, a fire occurred, by which the statehouse and prison, 27 
and probably all other buildings on the third ridge, were de- 
stroyed. 

At a session of the General Assembly held in April, 1699, acts 
were passed for establishing the city of Williamsburg (about 
eight miles north-east of " James Towne "), for erecting a state- 
house there and providing for raising funds to defray its cost 
by imposing an import tax on slaves, also on servants not born 
in England or Wales, brought to the colony. 28 

After the fire of 1698, "James Citty" waned. One patent 
for a small tract in the town, issued in October, 1699, 29 is of re- 
cord, but no new houses are known to have been erected. 
Twenty-three years later, the place comprised nothing but 
" Abundance of Brick Eubbish and three or four good inhabited 
Houses, tho' the Parish is of pretty large Extent, but less than 
others." i0 In 1807, there were two dwellings on the island, the 
Jaquelin-Ambler and Travis mansions, and in 1861, but one, 
the former, which was burned during the ensuing war. The 
above house was afterwards rebuilt, and again burned in 1896. 
The ground on which it formerly stood was probably owned by 
Sir Francis Wyatt in 1623. At some time prior to 1690 it be- 
longed to John Page, clerk of the Assembly, from whom it was 
purchased by William Sherwood. 31 

26 McDonald Papers, Vol. VI, p. 165. 

~ 7 The Present State of Virginia, by Hugh Jones, A. M., p. 25. 

^Hening's Statues, Vol. Ill, pp. 193 and 197. 

29 Va. Land Pat. Records, Book IX, p. 232. 

30 The Present State of Virginia, by Hugh Jones, A. M., p. 25. 
ai Va. Land Pat. Records, Book VIII, p. 384. 



Population of the Town and Colony. 

jUKINGi- the first eighteen years of the settling of Virginia 
jj||| there were great fluctuations in the population of the 
colony, and also of " James Forte " or " James 
Towne." Each influx of new life was followed by a more 
or less rapid ebbing of the human tide, resulting from the 
ravages of disease and the tomahawk. During the first eight 
months the fort's population dwindled from one hundred and 
five to a little band of thirty-eight persons, the smallest number 
that the colony ever held. By the arrival of several reinforce- 
ments during the twenty-one months following (January, 1608, 
to October, 1609), its population was increased to upwards of 
490. 1 Within eight months the above number was reduced by 
death from starvation, climatic illness, and pestilence, to about 
sixty persons. Fresh accessions under Gates and La Warr in 
June, 1610, brought the number up to about 350, most of whom 
were quartered in the town. In a few months this number was 
diminished by death to about 200. Thus far about 900 persons 
had been sent from England to Virginia, of whom about 700 had 
perished. The numbers and mortality of Virginia emigrants 
for the ensuing twenty years as given by different authorities are 
discrepant. 

Between December, 1606, and November, 1619, it is estimated 
that 2,540 persons emigrated to Virginia, of whom 1,640 died.* 
Between the latter date and February, 1625, 4,749 colonists 
came to Virginia and 4,400 died, thus making a total mortality 
in about nineteen years of 6,040, out of 7,289. 3 

According to John Wroth, a member of the Warwick faction, 
up to 1623, 3,570 out of 5,270 colonists died in the four years 

1 Works, Captain John Smith, p. 486. The numbers reported 
brought by different vessels indicate a less number. 
3 The First Republic in America, pp. 285, 329. 
3 Ibid, p. 612. 

[43] 



44 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

ending with 1622. 4 Captain Nathaniel Butler represented that 
up to the winter of 1622, the mortality was 8,000 out of 10,000/ 
while the resident colonists declared that up to the winter of 
1622 not over 6,000 were sent to Virginia, of whom 2,500 were 
living. 8 Captain John Smith says: "neere 7,000 people" out 
of 8,500 had died to 1627. 7 

As pointed out above, there were in June, 1610, about 350 
people at "James Towne." In 1616, there were on the entire 
island fifty persons, under Lieutenant Sharpe. It is stated that 
in the following year there were 400 persons at " James Towne," 
of whom, on account of sickness, only one-half were effective. 8 

A census taken in 1623 gives the population of the town at 
183. It also shows that during the preceding year, eighty-nine 
had died in the town. 9 

Although " James Citty " had now assumed more of the pro- 
portions of a town, it possessed none of the attractions or allure- 
ments which would demand expenditures of money, and probably 
but few opportunities for making it in trade. The simple, 
primitive tastes of the settlers, coupled with their general 
poverty, made shops superfluous. In 1625 the town had one 
merchant's store. 10 An attempt was made in 1649 to hold 
a bi-weekly market. This was a complete failure and six years 
later, the act providing for the market was repealed. 11 

Nearly all who came to the colony, except the officials, had all 
to make and little to spend. The population of the town, there- 
fore, did not keep pace with that of the colony, in which, after 
about the first twenty-five years, it slowly but steadily in- 

* The Genesis of the United States, p. 1064. 
5 The Unmasked Face. 

8 The Denial of Nathaniel Butler's " The Unmasked Face," Neill's 
History of the Va. Company, p. 405. 

7 Works, Captain John Smith, p. 884. s Ibid, p. 536 

9 McDonald Papers, Vol. I. 

10 The First Republic in America, p. 623. 
v-Hening's Statutes, Vol. I, pp. 362, 397. 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 45 

creased. In 1634 it amounted to 5,119 ? in 1649, to 15,000 f 
in 1665, to 40,000 ; u in 1681, to 70,000 or 80,000 ; 15 and in 1715 
to 95,000. 18 The function of the town was that of furnishing a 
place for the assembling of the Legislature and for holding courts. 
Its permanent population, after about 1623, comprised only a 
part of the bureaucracy of the colony, and tavern keepers, with 
their respective families, amounting possibly to one hundred 
persons, which approximate number was periodically doubled by 
the meetings of the Assembly and court. 

12 State Papers, Colonial, Vol. 8, No. 65, 1634, De Jarnette Papers. 

13 Force's Historical Tracts, Vol. II. A Perfect Description of Vir- 
ginia, p. 1. 

"Winder Papers, Vol. I, p. 187. 

15 Sainsbury Abstracts, Vol. 1681-1685, par. 275. Of this number 
76 per cent, "were freemen. 
16 Cbalmer's American Colonies, Vol. II, p. 7. 




Sufferings of the Early Colonists. 

>HE settlement near the head of Jamestown Island was at 

first called " James Forte " and " James Towne," usually 

the latter. After the town was enlarged in 1608, and 

until about 1620, or shortly after the close of Sir Thomas 

Smythe's administration as governor of the London Company, 

it was almost invariably referred to by the latter appellation. 

The sufferings of the colonists during the above period have 
probably never been surpassed or even equalled in measure or 
degree in any other pioneer colony. Under the Smythe regime 
the colonists' greatest sufferings resulted from hunger. Hand 
in hand with famine stalked pestilence, yellow fever communi- 
cated by vessels bound for " James Towne " which had touched 
at the West Indies, and bubonic plague and cholera brought from 
London. Fevers and dysentery resulting from exposure, nox- 
ious exhalations from the surrounding marshes and from forest 
mould for the first time exposed to the heat of the summer sun, 
impure drinking water and the mosquito all had their share 
in decimating the colony. The medical treatment then in 
vogue doubtless increased the mortality, bringing fatal results 
to many who, without it would have recovered. That the 
leaders did not succumb was no doubt largely due to nearly all 
being in the prime of manhood and inured to hardship through 
the campaigns against the Spaniards in the Netherlands, by 
which experience they had learned how to avert some of the 
bad effects of camp life. 

As the colonists were but meagerly supplied with provisions 
for export, for the benefit of the London Company, their sub- 
sistence during the first four or five years was derived principally 
from England and raised but few food products, their labor be- 
ing principally employed in producing tobacco and other articles 
from the Indian, either by force or barter. They were not per- 

[46] 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 47 

mitted to engage in planting on their own account, except on 
condition of contributing a part of their crops and one month's 
services annually to the London Company. Their letters to 
and from England were intercepted and proffers of assistance 
to the company in behalf of individual colonists from their 
friends were declined, with the assurance that they were well 
provided for. None was allowed to leave Virginia, except by 
special permission, and it is narrated that a passport from the 
king for the return of a colonist to England was sewed in a 
garter to insure its delivery. 1 

The settlers were, to all purposes, in a state of servitude, from 
which, as a special favor, some were offered release on condition 
of working three years on Fort Charles. The abhorrence with 
which life in the colony was regarded is exemplified by a state- 
ment in a letter from the Spanish Ambassador in London to 
Philip III, of Spain, in December, 1616, that while two of three 
thieves under sentence of death availed themselves of the alter- 
native of going to Virginia, the third preferred hanging. 2 

The climax of suffering was reached when on June 7, 1610, 
the sixty survivors of four hundred and ninety settlers of but 
eight months before, broken in health and crushed in spirit, 
turned their backs on the odious town where tragedy had been 
almost continually enacted for three years. So deeply impressed 
by the abject misery of this remnant had been the members of 
the lately arrived party of Sir Thomas Gates that they had 
readily joined in the flight from suffering and horrors which they 
believed would be their lot if they tarried at the ill-favored spot. 
This, the climax of the critical period of the colony, was safely 
passed when the astute La Warr, newly appointed governor of 
Virginia, being apprised on his arrival from England at Point 
Comfort of the intended abandonment of the colony, thwarted 
the plan by despatching Captain Brewster ahead of his fleet to 
meet the forlorn party, and turned it back to the deserted post, 

1 A Brief e Declaration, etc., McDonald Papers, "Vol. I, pp. 103-142 
2 The Genesis of the United States, p. 900. 



48 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

where the tragedy was renewed for another and longer term of 
years. 

An amelioration of the colonists' condition was brought about 
by the election in 1619, of Sir Edwin Sandys, as successor to 
Sir Thomas Smythe, to the office of treasurer or governor of 
the London Company. Even before the new administration was 
elected, the former policy of the company, which had been 
actuated by commercial avarice, was abandoned, through the in- 
fluence of the Sandys party, which inaugurated in its stead one 
inspired by broad and liberal views. The " most severe and 
cruel " " Lavves, Diuine, Morall and Martiall," were repealed, 
and courts of justice established after the manner of those of 
the mother country ; the " ancient planters " who had arrived 
before the time of Dale were released from further service to the 
colony, land titles were confirmed and the individual ownership 
of land introduced by patent. The colony was also allowed to 
elect its own legislative body. The last mentioned privilege, 
however, although enjoyed in 1619, does not appear to have 
been officially promulgated until the publication of the written 
constitution in 1621/ under the administration of Sir Henry 
Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, who had succeeded Sir 
Edwin Sandys in 1620. These reforms and privileges stimu- 
lated the colony to renewed efforts and led to the development of 
its principal town. 

As late as 1623, however, when the needs of the colonists 
should have been understood in England, their condition was 
often deplorable. Statements by members of the crew of one of 
the ships arriving in Virginia in that year attested to newly 
arrived emigrants dying in the streets of James Towne, and 
lying there until the dogs had eaten their bodies. A most for- 
lorn and mournful message from Virginia of this time is a 
letter of Eichard Erethorne, of Martin's Hundred, about seven 
miles below Jamestown, to his parents in England, that " since 
he landed he had eaten nothing but pease and loblolly (water 
gruel). He had seen no venison and was not allowed to go 

"Herring's Statutes, Vol. I, pp. 110, 111, 112. 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 49 

after waterfowl, but had to work both early and late for a mesS' 
of water gruel and a mouthful of bread and beef. The people 
cried out ' Oh ! that they were in England without their limbs 
* * * though they begged from door to door.' There was noth- 
ing to be got but sickness and death, except that one had money 
to lay out in some things for profit but (I) have nothing at all, 
no not a shirt to (my) back, but two rags, nor no clothes but 
one poor suit, nor but one pair of shoes, but one pair of stock- 
ings, but one cap, but two bands." His cloak had been stolen 
by one of his fellows. He had not a penny to help him to 
" spice " or sugar, or strong waters, without which it was impos- 
sible to live. He had grown weak, for he had often eaten more 
in a day at home tha 1 was now allowed him for a week, and his 
parents had often given more than his present day's allowance 
to a beggar at the door. Goodman * Jackson had been very kind 
to him, and marvelled much that he had been sent (as) "a 
servant to the company " and said he " had been better knocked 
on the head." He entreated his father to redeem him, or at 
any rate to send provisions which might be sold at a profit, 
especially cheese, etc. * * * Unless the " Sea-Flower " came in 
with provisions, his master's men would have but a half-penny 
loaf for each day's food and might be " turned up to the land 
and eat bark of trees or moulds of the ground. Therefore, Oh ! 
that you did see my daily and hourly sighs, groans and tears 
and thumps that I afford my breast and rue and curse the time 
of my birth with holy Job. I thought no head had been able 
to hold so much water as hath and doth daily flow from mine 
eyes." 

The " Sea Flower " was destroyed by an explosion of gun- 
powder, so that Frethorne's worst misgivings may have been 
realized. 5 



4 Goodman and Goodwife, forms of address then used in England 
instead of Mr. and Mrs. 

5 Duke of Manchester's MSS. in 8th Report of Royal Commission 
on Historical MSS. 

4— J. T. 



"The New Towne." 

•HE new policy of the company was carried out by Sir 
George Yeardley, whose methods were in striking con- 
trast with those of his predecessor, the unprincipled 
Argall. This marked the beginning of a new era in the 
colony, of which a feature was " the New Towne," as it was 
styled in the patents to its residents, with new and better con- 
structed habitations. The term " The New Towne " was applied 
to about fifty acres on the fourth ridge adjoining on the east the 
original stockade town of four acres. 

One of the thoroughfares of " the New Towne " is referred 
to in the patents as " the Back Street." As will appear below, 
" the New Towne " at first comprised the most important part 
of the corporation, and, as a matter of fact, seems to have been 
the first substantially built town. Prior to its establishment, 
land appears not to have been perfectly vested in the settlers. 
With the beginning of this era and ever after, the place is re- 
ferred to in the surviving patent transcripts, with the single ex- 
ception of one of 1664, in which it is called "James Towne," 
as " James Citty." It is also invariably so referred to in the 
reports of the meetings of the General or Grand Assembly. The 
island and containing county were named from the town, the 
county still bearing the name of James City. 

Although the official name of the place was "James Citty," 
it was generally referred to in official correspondence as " James 
Towne." 

As it is the general opinion that the greater part of the an- 
cient town site has been washed away, it will be a sur- 
prise to many to learn that this view is erroneous. The proof 
of the error is furnished by the old "James Citty" patent 
records, which, when properly interpreted, show that but a 
small proportion of the town site has been destroyed, and that 
the quarter called "the New Towne" has not been encroached 

[50] 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 51 

on to any appreciable extent by the river. Eeferences in some 
of the patents to branches of " Pitch and Tarr Swamp/' and to 
other topographical features which are probably almost as clearly 
defined as they were two or three centuries ago, have made it 
possible to locate the site of " the New Towne," and the greater 
part of the west end, or old town quarter. Former students of 
the records have either abandoned them with the conviction that 
they were too indefinite or obscure for solution, or misconstru- 
ing them, evolved incoherent conclusions which have misled and 
confused the reader. The transcripts pertaining to " James 
Citty," which are valued principally as old curios, form a laby- 
rinth, in treading which for a long time, a step in any direction 
led seemingly to hopeless perplexities, and only after repeated 
and long continued efforts to interpret them, was the " open 
sesame " found, and a sufficient number linked together to fur- 
nish a chart of the ancient town. The period they cover ex- 
tends from 1619 to 1699. The pages of the record containing 
two of the earliest and most interesting grants, viz : to Governor 
Sir George Yeardley, Knt., and Captain Roger Smith, as stated 
in the introduction, are missing. This will be generally re- 
gretted, as possibly on account of their not having been cor- 
rectly deciphered, the renditions contained in historical publi- 
cations are not clear. 

The method employed in evolving the chart from the patents, 
although apparently not complicated, was slow, tedious, and re- 
plete with failures. Briefly stated, it consisted of finding and 
uniting plats of different tracts found to have common bound- 
aries. The topography and objects referred to in the patents 
were platted simultaneously with the boundaries of the land 
they described. 

The incompleteness of the existing records is made apparent 
by the references in several transcripts to patents which are not 
of record. Those missing were no doubt improperly entered 
"in books labelled Bonds, Commissions, Depositions," &C., 1 

1 Eening , s Statutes, Vol. II, p. 509. 



52 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

which were destroyed in the burning of the office of the General 
Court during the evacuation of Eichmond in 1865. Although 
the records are incomplete, and the descriptions in some of 
those available contain inaccuracies which required considerable 
study to correct, while those in others are too meagre or vague 
to afford any clue to the land's position, they, in many cases, 
not only furnish the metes and bounds of the area patented, but 
also a variety of other information, e. g., the ancient names of 
different localities of the town and island, the positions and 
directions of the river-bank and highways, the sites of the second 
fort, called "the turf fort," "the Back Street," in "the New 
Towne," "the Country House," burned, probably, about 1660, 
the several statehouse buildings, dwellings of some of the later 
residents, and other objects now of great interest. A few of 
the earlier patents record the vocation and social position of 
the patentee and even the name of the ship in which he came 
to Virginia, and the year of arrival. 

The majority of the plats based on the patents, and repre- 
sented on the map by solid lines, probably possess about the 
same degree of accuracy as the work of the average class of 
compass surveys of to-day. Between 1623 and 1644 only the 
general directions of land lines are given in the descriptions. 
About the latter year the surveyors were apparently less inexact 
and recorded azimuths to the nearest quarter point, or about 
2% degrees. In a patent of 1656 the azimuths of several sides 
are given to % point. 

The direction of the Back Street in the Pott patent of 1624 is 
recorded as "eastward." The azimuth of the street is more 
definitely stated in the Phips patent, which included the Pott 
patent, and was issued thirty-two years later, as E. S. E. *4 S. 

Until about 1667 the azimuths of lines were expressed in the 
same terms as are employed by mariners in boxing the com- 
pass. Beginning with the above year, azimuths are given in. 
degrees. By 1683, more careful work appears to have been the 
rule, and azimuths are recorded to one-fourth of a degree. It 
would appear from the foregoing that prior to about 1667 some 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 53 

form of the mariner's compass was used in making land sur- 
veys, and that about that year the circumferentor came into use. 

The consideration on account of which land was granted was 
always specified in the patent. During the first twenty years it 
was usually a reimbursement to the patentee of the cost of his 
own transportation and that of others to the colony, which he 
had defrayed. The portions of land are styled dividends 2 and 
dividents, and were for fifty acres per capita. The grant was 
conditioned by the annual payment of a nominal sum of money 
(one shilling per 50 acres) or quantity of tobacco (two to five 
pounds), designated a fee rent. The fee was made payable in 
money or tobacco to the " Cape Merchant," as the treasurer 
was called, either at the feast of St. Michael, the Archangel, or 
at that of St. Thomas, the Apostle. In at least two of the 
" James City " patents the specified fee is a capon, " to his 
Majestie's use," payable " at the feast of St. Thomas the Apos- 
tle." '' A condition named in some patents between 1636 and 
1640 is that the patentee should erect a house within six months. 4 

The " James Citty " patents usually describe the grant as be- 
ing a part of a dividend of fifty acres, or more, situated outside 
the liberties of the town. 

Several patents issued under Cromwell were subsequently con- 
firmed by being re-issued under Charles II. 

The transcripts of the patents are the sole remaining evidence 
authoritatively fixing the initial spot of the nation's history, as 
almost all other records, including those of the early convey- 
ances, were burned during the War between the States. 

The patents relating to " James Citty " are scattered through 
nine ponderous volumes of MSS. Book I, on account of its an- 
tiquity, is the most interesting of the series. As shown by his 
indorsement at the end of the book, the transcript was made by 
Edward Harrison in 1683, or nearly a century before the United 
States attained its independence. The handwriting is clear and 

2 This orthography is given in some of the earlier patents. 

3 Virginia Land Patent Records, Book I, p. 689, and Book IV, p. 475. 
* Virginia Land Patent Records, Book I, p. 689, and Book IV, p. 475. 



54 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

uniform ana to one familiar with the characters then employed, 
is readily deciphered. 

The abbreviation " y " for th in the and that does not appear 
in this book, which includes the issues up to and during a part 
of the year 1643. Its first occurrence is in Book VII, in the 
patent to Edward Chilton, of 1683. The lower case ancient 
script letter " p " frequently appears as an abbreviation for per 
or par in the patents of the entire " James Citty " period. 

The second volume is indorsed "Beverly/' probably Peter 
Beverly, who from 1692 to 1700 was clerk of the House of Bur- 
gesses, and in the latter year became its speaker. The book 
was written in 1694. There are no indorsements in the other 
books to show when they were written or the names of the 
scriveners. 

The first two books were undoubtedly written at " James 
Citty," and, after escaping the State house fire of 1698, and that 
of the Capitol at Williamsburg about 1747, were probably moved 
to Eichmond in 1780, when that city became the capital. They 
have thus passed through two ordeals of fire and two wars and, 
after silently witnessing many vicissitudes of fortune, rest in the 
historic Capitol at Eichmond. 

There does not appear to be any record of legislative enact- 
ment denning the limits of " James Citty " except one of 
"Bacon's Laws," passed in 1676, by which those then existing 
were extended to include the entire island. 6 The above act, 
unfortunately, does not recite the previous limits. Shortly after 
the Bacon uprising was suppressed and the Berkeley govern- 
ment re-instated, the above law was repealed. 

Beverly wrote in 1705, that in 1620, the corporations, as they 
were then styled, were bounded, and that one of the new record 
books of transcripts contained a statement of Governor Argall 
to the effect that he had a knowledge of the boundaries of 
" James Citty." He, however, adds that " there was not to be 
found one word of the charter or patent itself of the corpora- 

5 Hening , s Statutes, Vol. II, p. 362. 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 55 

tion." a The patent to Captain John Harvey in 1624 shows that 
the lower branch of " Pitch and Tarr Swamp " was the town's 
eastern boundary. 

The patents indicate that the town included nearly all of the 
island above the " Head of Swamp/' between James Eiver and 
the Back River (see map), and that the first and second ridges 
formed, as it were, outlying districts. They show clearly that 
after 1623, the most thickly settled part of the town was the 
" New Towne," on the south shore of the island, below the 
church. 

About the time of Bacon's Rebellion, according to "Bacon's 
Proseedings," of unknown authorship, in the Burwell MSS. 
collection, 7 the town was situated " much about the midle of 
the Sowth line, close upon the River, extending east and west, 
about 3 quarters of a mile." This description accords with its 
location as determined from the patents and shown on the map 
between the initial letters OS and G. The church tower, there- 
fore, stood near the western end of the town. 

" The New Towne " was situated on the southern slope of the 
same ridge as the tower ruin (the fourth) and extended east 
from the first town of four acres, about three-eighths of a mile, 
to the lower branch of " Pitch and Tarr Swamp." This area is 
now mostly covered with orchards, in which considerable por- 
tions of the ground are filled with particles of brick and mortar 
of former buildings, scattered by the plow. 

Back Street was east of the church and at distances from the 
south shore of the island varying from two hundred to six hun- 
dred feet. The parts of it located were about sixty feet wide, 8 
and had the same general direction, east and west, as the high- 
way referred to in the patents as the "way along the Greate 
River," or " Maine River," which constituted the front street 
of the " New Towne." The two thoroughfares were connected 

8 History of the Present State of Virginia, p. 37. 

7 Force's Historical Tracts, Vol. I. 

8 Obtained by platting independently the tracts on opposite sides 
of the street. 



56 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

by cross lanes, referred to as highways. The Back Street lay 
immediately in front of what is believed to have been the site 
of the Jaquelin-Ambler mansion. It could not have been a 
street in the modern signification of the word, with sidewalks 
and pavements, for paving before the doors of houses, even in 
"London Towne," was not introduced until 1614. It seems to 
have merged into the " old Greate Road," which led to the 
head of the island and passed near the northeast corner of the 
old churchyard, a few rods from the same corner of the present 
one, near which there appear to be traces of a road. 

Traces of the highway along the river-bank, bordered by its 
gnarled and riven mulberries, lineal descendants, no doubt, of 
some cited in several patents as reference trees, are still to be 
seen. The planting of mulberry trees for feeding silkworms was 
initiated in 1621, and made compulsory by statute. Silk culture 
received attention as early as 1614, but the enterprise was never 
a commercial success. Foreign workmen were imported to 
teach silk making, and a present of silk was sent Charles II by 
Sir William Berkeley in 1668. 9 

Among the earlier residents of " the New Towne " were some 
" people of qualitye " and note, including four governors, Sir 
George Yeardley, Knight ; Sir Francis Wyatt, Knight ; Sir John 
Harvey, Knight ;" Mister, Governor and Doctor Pott," " Doc- 
tor of Physick " and " Physician General to the Colony ;" also 
Captain Ralph Hamor, secretary of state and chronicler; 
George Sandys, who, while there and residing at William 
Pierce's (see map), achieved a part of his work of turning into 

9 The present of silk, it is stated, was woven into a coronation robe 
for King Charles. As soon as the king graciously signified his 
acceptance of the above douceur, Sir William presented a petition 
asking, as a special allowance, the customs duties on a ship's cargo 
of tobacco. The king adroitly parried this request by sending a 
warrant for the allowance requested, but payable when Sir William 
should send to England from Virginia a 300-ton ship laden with 
silk, hemp, flax, and potatoes. (Sainsbury's Abstracts, June 12, 
1669.) It does not appear that the governor ever sent the above 
shipload of commodities and received the reward. 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE.' J 57 

English Ovid's Metamorphoses; Captain Roger Smith, Captain 
Richard Stevens, who wounded George Harrison in a duel near 
"James Citty," and George Menify, merchant and member of 
the council, who married the relict of John Rolfe, whose second 
wife was Pocahontas. The grounds of the above persons are 
shown more or less accurately on the map. 

Sir George Yeardley's grounds had an area of seven acres, 
one rood. They were situated on the second ridge between the 
branch of the swamp and the Back River. The area of Gov- 
ernor "Wyatt's tract is not known. It included the ground, 
where, at a later day, stood the Jaquelin-Ambler mansion. Dr. 
Pott first patented three acres and a few years later added nine 
acres. Captain Roger Smith's lot was four acres. 

In 1665, there was a bridge across the branch of swamp near 
the northwest corner of the former twelve acre tract of Governor 
Pott, 10 connecting the fourth and second ridges. There is a 
causeway at the above point which may be the successor of the 
bridge. This probably was the same bridge referred to in the 
rendition of the Yeardley patent contained on page 68 of ISTeill's 
Virginia Carolcrum. 

Sir William Berkeley resided at Jamestown during his first 
term of office as governor, his residence being one of the brick 
houses composing the first state house, which stood near the 
south shore of the island, about one hundred yards east of the 
eastern boundary of the Association's grounds. The same 
building appears to have been used by Governor Bennett, who, 
as the first governor under the Commonwealth, succeeded 
Berkeley. 

Among the later residents of " the New Towne " were Cap- 
tain George Marable, John Barber, Robert Castle, John Phips, 
Thos. Woodhouse, John Fitchett, John Knowles and Rev. Wil- 
liam Mays. A list of the last residents after Bacon's Rebellion 
would include the names of Henry Hartwell, clerk of the court, 
John Howard, Richard Holder, Lieutenant-Colonel Chiles, John 

10 Va. Land Pat. Records, Book V, p. 63-. 



58 THE SITE OE OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

Page, and although last, not least, Wm. Sherwood, the epitaph 
on whose tombstone in the little churchyard tells that he was 
"Born In the Parish Of White Chappell Near London. A 
Great Sinner Waiting For A loyfull Besurrection." Sherwood, 
during Bacon's Eebellion, was an adherent of Sir William Berke- 
ley. He was attorney-general, 1678-1680. In 1694 he was the 
proprietor of upwards of three hundred acres of land at the 
head of the island, including the outlying extreme western part 
of the town above the upper branch of " Pitch and Tarr Swamp," 
and a small part of the " New Towne " adjacent to Back Street. 

The elevated position of the part of the fourth ridge north of 
the Back Street, between the site of the Jaquelin- Ambler mes- 
suage and the grounds of the Association for the Preservation 
of Virginia Antiquities, should have made it much sought after 
for residential purposes. There are some indications of there 
being house foundations along the line of the Back Street. The 
names of their occupants can probably never be ascertained, as 
there are apparently no documents containing that information. 

In the address of ex-President Tyler, delivered at Jamestown 
in 1857 at the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the first 
landing of the English, he remarked in referring to the destruc- 
tion of the town by Bacon in 1676: "The town was partially 
rebuilt, and many of its houses remained during my early novi- 
tiate at William and Mary College" (1802-1807). "They 
stood in a connected street running east and west from near the 
present dwelling-house (the Jaquelin- Ambler mansion) to the 
ruins of the church." 

The foundations just mentioned probably belonged to the 
buildings alluded to by President Tyler. " The connected street 
running east and west " undoubtedly was the Back Street. 

" The New Towne " was always inhabited until " James 
Citty " ceased to exist, the names of various owners of land in 
that quarter, belonging to different generations, being shown by 
the patents. Individuals bearing the surnames of many of the 
former townspeople are still to be found within one hundred 
miles of the site of " James Citty." 



West End of the Town. 

fHE positions of land grants east of the church tower ruin 
being determined and the " New Towne " accurately 
located, investigation was made for the area west of the 
above ancient landmark. This resulted in placing 
approximately several early grants, previously referred to, near 
the head of the island on its western shore and in establishing 
quite satisfactorily the situation of the Bauldwin grant of 1656, 
which locates Block House Hill, also in showing the positions 
of the grants of John Howard, Eobert Beverley, the historian, 
Eichard Lawrence, the compatriot of Nathaniel Bacon, Jr., 
Edward Chilton, attorney-general, Colonel Nathaniel Bacon the 
elder, Lieutenant Edward Boss, Colonel Philip Ludwell the 
first, 1 and Philip Ludwell, Esq. (the second), of 1694. The 
last named grant fixes the position of the last state house. 

The tract described is an undated patent to John Howard of 
about 1690/ which Governor Sir Francis Nicholson failed to 
sign, but which was signed by Governor Sir Edmund Andros in 
1694, is approximately located by the present churchyard in- 
closure (see map). 

From the above patent it is learned that the direction of the 
" old Greate Boad " near and north of the churchyard was N. 
27 1 / 4° W. The marks of this road are visible at the above 
locality, as before mentioned. Its objective point was probably 
the isthmus. The parts of the road shown on the map not 
fixed by the patents are tentative. 

1 Philip I was member of the Virginia Council for many years; 
was expelled therefrom in 1679, reinstated in 1683 and again expelled 
in 1687 and disqualified for holding office; governor of Carolina 
1689-'92; subsequently resided in London and died in England after 
1716. Philip II, born 1666, died 1720. Speaker of House and mem- 
ber of council. Buried at Jamestown. 

"Virginia Land Patent Records, Book VIII, p. 82. 

[59] 



60 THE SITE OE OLD " JAMES TOWNE. 

From the Howard patent it is learned that Colonel Nathaniel 
Bacon, Senior, the second cousin of the patriot of the same 
name, owned a lot adjoining the Howard tract on the west. It 
would also appear from agreeing in bearing, that its northern 
boundary was part of one of the southern boundaries of part of 
a lot that once belonged to the scholarly Lawrence, sequestered 
on account of its owner's participation in Bacon's Eebellion, 
and bought by Colonel Bacon, Senior, in 1683 — possibly be- 
cause it adjoined his tract, which was in front of the present 
tower ruin. Lawrence's house, according to T. M.'s account of 
Bacon's Rebellion, 3 was one of the finest in the town. The re- 
mainder of the Lawrence tract probably extended east of that 
bought by Bacon. On using the common boundary line of the 
Howard and Lawrence plats, and placing the former in what 
appears to be its proper position near the graveyard, the latter 
is found to have for its northern boundary the branch of " Pitch 
and Tarr Swamp," which accords with the description in the 
patent. 

The patent of the Lawrence tract * fixes the position, as its 
western boundary, of a grant to Eobert Beverley in 1694, which 
in turn furnishes the position of " The Maine Cart road," prob- 
ably another name for "the old Greate Road," leading, most 
probably, past the well about one rod east of the state house 
foundations on the third ridge, towards the isthmus and Block 
House Hill. 

A correspondence of the course of the western line of a tract 
granted to William Edwards B in 1690 with that of the eastern 
line of the Chilton tract locates the Edwards tract, and through 
it the western line of a lot of Nathaniel Bacon, Senior. The 
eastern boundary of the Bacon tract, as has been pointed out, 
was the Howard tract. Bacon's lot, therefore, occupied the 
greater part of the eastern half of the space on which stands the 
Confederate fort of 1861. 

3 Force's Historical Tracts, Vol. I. 

4 Virginia Land Patent Records, Book VII, p. 300. 
B IMd, Book VIII, p. 42. 



THE SITE OP OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 61 

The locating of the third and fourth state houses was accom- 
plished by determining the approximate positions of two land 
grants on a modern map of the head of the island, followed by 
probing and excavating. 

Extracts from the patents are as follows: 
Phillip Ludwell, April 20, 1694,— iy 2 acres. Va. Land Patent 
Records, Book VIII, p. 315. 

"One Acre and halfe of Land adjoyning to the Euins of his 
three Brick houses between the State house and Country house 
in James City which Land is bounded Viz. beginning Neare 
Pitch and Tarr Swamp Eight Cheynes of the East'most end of 
the said houses and running by the said end south two degrees 
westerly Sixteen cheynes thence North Eighty Eight degrees 
Westerly three and three quarter Cheynes thence North two 
degrees Easterly sixteen Cheynes by the other End of the said 
houses and thence South Eighty Eight degrees Easterly three 
and three quarter cheynes to the place it begun." 

Edward Chilton, April 16, 1683,-2 acres, 17 chains. Va. 
Land Patent Eecords, Book VII, p. 292. 

" bounded, viz : from Col. Phillip Ludwells corner stake south 
eighty-eight degrees, easterly partly along his Hon rs line ninety 
fouer chaines, thence south fouer degrees, and an halfe westerly, 
partly along an old ditch twelve chaines and an halfe down 
James river bank and along under ye said Hill to a stake neer 
ye brick fort, and thence north sixteen degrees easterly seaven 
cha : and an halfe to ye first stake." 

The tract of Philip Ludwell being platted, its most probable 
location, after correcting for declination the bearings of its 
lines as given in the patent, was found to be on the third ridge, 
near the then southern end of the seawall. This was decided upon 
after considerable study and reflection, taking into account the 
distance from "Pitch and Tarr Swamp" of the crest of the 
third ridge, which appeared to be a good site for the three 
houses shown by the patent to have been on the tract. Although 
the above location seemed to be the only one which would meet 



62 THE SITE OE OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

the requirements of the patent, it was not finally accepted until, 
as shown later, it was confirmed by further investigation. 

The tract of Edward Chilton was next platted. A clue to 
its location was furnished by one of its boundary lines terminat- 
ing " neer ye brick fort," which fort, in 1688, was described by 
the Eev. John Clayton as being situated in " a vale," above the 
town, and consequently, above the church tower. A probable 
position for the brick fort, fulfilling the conditions imposed 
by the above description, seemed to be in the extension westward 
from the river bank of the swale between the third and fourth 
ridges. This view was confirmed by the discovery, by sounding, 
of piles of masonry in the shallow water at the locality named. 
The Chilton tract thus being approximately located with 
reference to the brick fort, valuable information was furnished 
as to the character and direction of the shore line, a " Hill " 
[high bank] lying about east and west. A most important and 
interesting feature, however, is yet to be noted, viz., that when 
the Chilton tract was given its most probable location on the 
map, it was found to connect with the assumed location of Philip 
Ludwell's tract. Moreover, the northern boundary of the Chil- 
ton tract which passed "partly along his Hon'rs line" (Hon. 
Philip Ludwell) is shown by the patents to have the same mag- 
netic bearing as the southern boundary of the Philip Ludwell 
tract of 1694. The grantee of the 1694 tract, entitled Philip 
Ludwell, Esq., was undoubtedly the son of the Hon. Philip 
Ludwell referred to in the Chilton patent. It seems probable 
that Philip Ludwell the second received part of his grant of 
1694, the southern, from his father, who owned it in 1683, and 
possibly also the three brick houses, for the patent implies that 
the houses belonged to the second Ludwell before its date of 
issue in 1694. 

The patent of 1694 states that Philip Ludwell, Esq., had land 
due him for the transportation of one person to Virginia, and he 
naturally selected a new piece adjacent to that which he then 
held, probably north of the houses, receiving a grant for the 
new and old tracts combined. Instances are found in the old 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 63 

patent records of a patent being issued covering earlier grants 
that were contiguous to that acquired at the time of issuing the 
later patent. 

The proximity of the first Philip LudwelPs property to the 
state house may account, to some extent, for the interest which 
he had in rebuilding the state house destroyed by Bacon, for 
which work he was, in fact, the contractor. 

The plats of Chilton and Ludwell being thus united, trial 
was made to ascertain if the combined plats could be better loca- 
ted when platted separately. It was found, however, that no- 
change could be made that would improve the first location, 
and the author concluded that the time had arrived to verify 
his work by examining the ground. An opportunity for doing 
this occurred in January, 1903, when, to his great satisfaction, 
and that of a co-worker, the steel probe used for exploring the 
ground, struck a number of buried foundation walls. The 
subsequent work of the Association for the Preservation of Vir- 
ginia Antiquities, under his direction, has confirmed his views, 
the foundations discovered being within less than twenty-five feet 
of their position as indicated by the Ludwell patent, and having 
the same width collectively as given for the Ludwell tract. More- 
over, after correcting for variation of the needle, the different 
walls were found to have about the same azimuths as the 
boundaries of the Ludwell tract, given in the patent. 

Adjoining the Ludwell house foundations on the east are 
others agreeing in a general way with the meagre descriptions 
extant of the state house, and to the west others, which are, of 
course, the remains of the " Country House " of 1694. 

Further references to the above state house and brick fort are 
made under their respective captions. 

Near the lower extremity of the seawall, and just outside of it, 
formerly stood a brick building, which Eichard Eandolph stated 
in 1837 was reputed to have been a powder magazine. 6 This 
building was referred to in ex-President Tyler's address at 

6 Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. Ill, p. 303. 



64 THE SITE OP OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

Jamestown in 1857/ previously quoted from, as the prison 
house of Opechancanough, brother of the great Powhatan. He 
also stated that its cellar had been formerly used for the storage 
of powder. If used as a magazine, uncommonly bad judgment 
was displayed in placing it where it would have been such a 
good target for a hostile fleet and where also in event of an ex- 
plosion, it would have damaged or destroyed the buildings on 
the third ridge. The allusion to it as the prison of Opechan- 
canough is suggestive of its being used as a jail, although prob- 
ably not for the Indian chief who died a captive at Jamestown 
about two years after the massacre of 1644. 

In 1891 the eastern foundation wall was all that remained of 
the reputed "magazine." It was then located and found to be 
about thirty-two feet long. If it was a prison, it probably was 
not built until after 1685, in which year the subject of building a 
prison was brought up in the Assembly; if a magazine, it was 
probably erected at an earlier date, possibly about the time that 
the brick fort, hereinafter described, was constructed. 

Incidentally, it may be stated that the third ridge was used as 
a camp ground for Confederate soldiers in 1861. 

7 Celebration of the 250th anniversary of the English settlement at 
Jamestown, May 13, 1857. 




Church Buildings and Original Graveyard of 
the "Mother Christian Towne." 

NE of the vexed questions concerning the first settlement 
is the position of the first churchyard or graveyard. It 
is learned from several old chronicles that the first 
church was within the triangular fort. The map of the 
Virginia settlement, procured by Zuhiga, for Philip III of 
Spain, in September, 1608,. previously referred to, shows a 
church thus inclosed. 

The first church, a rude hut " covered with rafts, sedge and 
earth," was burned within eight months of its erection. The 
second, erected in 1608, most probably on the same site as the 
first, must also have been a flimsy makeshift, for it is referred to 
by Sir Thomas Gates, two years after its construction, as being 
in an unserviceable condition, shortly after which it was recon- 
structed by Lord La Warr. Its dimensions in plan were sixty 
feet long by twenty-four feet wide, with a steeple at the west 
end. 

As the greater part of the triangular fort, as has been pointed 
out, has been washed away, the site of the second church is now 
probably under water. No vestige of its foundations have beeny 
or probably ever will be discovered. 

When, in 1617, Captain Argall arrived at "James Towne, 5 " 
he discovered the church which La Warr had renovated seven 
years before in ruins, a storehouse being in use for divine ser- 
vice. During his administration, i. e., from May, 1617, to 
April, 1619, the third church, whose dimensions were " 50 by 20 
foote," was erected. 

In 1639 Governor Sir John Harvey wrote to the Privy Coun- 
cil : " Such hath bene our Indeavour herein, that out of our 
owne purses wee have largely contributed to the building of a 
brick church, and both Masters of Shipps and others of the 
5-j.t. [65] 



86 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

ablest Planters have liberally by our persuation underwritt to 
this worke." 1 

No information is available as to when the building of this, 
the fourth church, was begun or completed, but the latter is sup- 
posed to have been accomplished by about 1647. It was burned 
in 1676. 

There is apparently no evidence as to whether this building 
was entirely or partly destroyed by the fire. It is probable that 
only the wood work, i. e., the roof and window and door frames, 
were burned. There is no information when the building was 
rehabilitated. It is presumed, however, to have been done 
during the partial rebuilding of the town between 1676 and 
1686. The building was apparently used until about the end 
of the 18th century, about which time its walls fell, and the 
bricks composing them were used by Mr. William Lee, of Green 
Spring, and Mr. John Ambler, of Jamestown, to inclose a part 
•of the old burial ground. The greater part of the graveyard 
walls are still standing. 

In his Old Churches and Families of Virginia, Bishop 
Meade states, with reference to the foundations of the last brick 
church, which he measured during a visit to Jamestown Island 
shortly before 1856, that the plan of the church was that of a 
basilica, whose accurately measured dimensions were twenty- 
eight by fifty-six feet. 2 

In the summer of 1901, the above foundations which adjoin 
the eastern wall of the tower ruins, were uncovered by Mr. John 
Tyler, Jr., under the auspices of the Association for the Pres- 
ervation of Virginia Antiquities, to which society the surround- 
ing tract of twenty-three acres belongs. 3 The average length 
and width within the walls are fifty and six-tenths feet and 
twenty-two and seven-tenths feet, respectively. 

1 Letter from Governor and Council in Virginia to Privy Council. 
McDonald Papers, Vol. II, pp. 233-260. 

2 Meade's Old Churches and Families of Virginia, Vol. I, p. III. 

3 Donated to the above association by Mr. and Mrs. Edward E. Bar- 
ney, in 1895. 




Fig.3 



Explanation: 

Fig-. i= Foundation Plan of 
Fourth Church Structure 
Inclosing- Fragments of 
Foundations of Third. 
Broken Lines Show Cor- 
rect Positions of But- 
tresses. 

Fig. 2 Front of Tower. 

Fig. 3 Section on Line A~B. 



!g4 



CD. 




Tij±2 

RUINS OF 
CHURCH STRUCTURES 

ERECTED AT 

IAMES CITTY,VA. 

ABOUT 1617 AND 1639. 



The Site of 07d James Tcnvn^J&07-J698. 



Copyright , 1907,by Samuel H.)bn&e. 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 67 

In clearing away from around the foundations the mould of 
more than a century, parts of the foundations of the side walls 
of a narrower building, whose inside width was about twenty 
feet, were uncovered. They consist of a footing of cobble-stones 
one foot thick, capped by a one-brick wall. The slenderness of 
the foundations indicates that their superstructure was of timber, 
as in the days of substantial building to which they belonged, 
they would have been regarded as too light for one of brick. 
It will be observed that the width of a building matching the 
foundations would be the same as given for the church built 
during Argall's term as deputy-governor. As only the western 
ends of the foundations of the two side walls remain, the length 
of the building they supported cannot be learned. 

In making the before-mentioned excavations it is reported 
that three distinct sets of floor tiles were found at different 
levels across the east end of the building, formerly belonging to 
a chancel five and one-half feet by twenty-two feet, indicating 
that there were three church structures on the same site. The 
lowest layer of tiles probably belonged to the third church and, 
in that case, if its end walls were inclosed in the same manner 
as its side walls, which seems quite likely, the length of the 
third church would have been about fifty feet. 

As the same site was used for the three church buildings 
erected after 1617, the churchyard, which was by custom the 
principal burial ground, most probably was never changed, and 
was probably used even before that year. The finding of a 
human skeleton, while excavating the foundations, crossed by 
a wall of the brick church near its southeastern corner, shows 
that there was a burial ground at its site before the first brick 
church was built (1639-1647), and possibly even before the 
building of the timber church about 1618, which covered almost 
all of the ground occupied by its successor. 

From what has preceded there should be no room for doubt 
as to the lighter foundations being those of the third church 
structure, that built under Argall, and in use when Yeardley 
came to the colony in 1619. The inclosure of one structure by 



68 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

the other suggests that, while the later church of brick was 
being constructed around the earlier one of timber, the latter 
was used for service. 

As the marriage of John Eolfe to Pocahontas occurred in 
1614, it would appear that the ceremony could not have been 
performed in the third church, whose site, as shown above, was 
subsequently occupied by the brick churches, but in the second 
structure, 60 by 24 feet in plan, which was reconstructed by 
Lord La Warr, and situated within the triangular fort a short 
distance, probably one hundred and thirty yards, above the 
church tower. The third church, however, was undoubtedly 
the one used for the convening of the first American legislature 
by Governor Yeardley, on July 30, 1619.* 

Although the first and second churches were within the tri- 
angular fort, it is not probable that the graveyard was. To have 
lived continually in such close proximity to their probable ulti- 
mate resting place would have been as distasteful to the settlers 
as to most people of this day. Moreover, the available area of 
the acre inclosure, as already demonstrated, would have been 
fully occupied by the buildings and streets mentioned by Stra- 
chey. Interments would have been made near, but outside of 
the triangular fort. By the time the third church was erected, 
about 1618, the burial ground, in consequence of the frightful 
mortality, must have grown to considerable proportions, and no 
site could have seemed more appropriate for it than the ground 
contiguous to that which had been consecrated as " God's 
Acre." 

On the occasion of the celebration at Jamestown of the 
bicentenary of the advent of the English, 6 " as it were by 
general consent the discovery of the oldest stone became an 
object of general emulation." * * * "beyond 1682, nothing 
legible could be traced, but from the freshness of the marble 

* Colonial Records of Virginia, Extra Senate (State) Document of 
1874. 

5 Report on the Proceedings of the Late Jubilee at Jamestown, Ta., 
page 9. 




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THE SITE OE OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 69 

bearing this date contrasted with the surrounding masses of 
mutilated and mouldering decay, it was the general impression 
that this stone was comparatively young." As, ordinarily, 
gravestones do not become illegible in less than one hundred and 
fifty to two hundred years, the assumption is not unreasonable 
that some of those seen at Jamestown in 1807 belonged to the 
same period as the third church, although the earliest known 
date on any tombstone in Virginia is 1637. 6 There is very good 
evidence that until about the 18th century many of the tomb- 
stones used in Virginia were shipped from across seas. 

It is stated by some who were present at Sunday services held 
for the island garrison in the old churchyard in 1861 that there 
was then a sufficient number of tombstones to serve as seats for 
the command of two hundred men. Only a few complete stones 
remain, and the fragments of others show what has been the 
common fate of nearly all. 

Eeference is now made to two grants to " Thomas Hampton, 
Clerke," in 1639 and 1644. 7 Both tracts are described as being 
on a ridge of land behind the church, the earlier and smaller 
between two swamps and the later " containing from the East- 
ermost bounds Westerly one hundred and twelve paces five foot 
to the pace and running the same Breadth Northerly to the back 
river." The later grant may have been made to include the 
earlier, a practice which, as previously noted, was common to 
the period. In any event, both grants were most probably upon 
the same ridge. 

Several patents are employed to locate Hampton's two tracts, 
as follows: to John Bauldwin in 1656 for 15 acres 69 poles, 5 
acres 69 poles of which were " at the old block house " and ten 
acres bounded " Easterly upon Mr. James' land Northerly upon 
the back river" [marsh?], and the smaller tract, "West upon 
the Main river and South upon the slash which lyeth between 
the State house and the said Mr. James." James' western 

6 Colonel Wm. Perry's at Westover. Colonel Perry was member of 
House of Burgesses and subsequently member of the Council. 

7 Virginia Land Patent Records, Book I, p. 689, and Book II, p. 105. 



70 THE SITE OE OLD " JAMES TOWKE. 

boundary was a meridian passing " by Friggett landing." 8 The 
approximate position of " Friggett Landing " is learned from 
the probable position of a grant to Eichard Clarke in 1646. 9 

In 1644 Eichard Sanders patented an acre "bounded west 
upon the river East upon ye marsh North upon the block house 
land and South upon the Land of Edward Challos." In the 
same year Edward Challis received a grant of an acre bounded 
" West upon the river East upon the marsh North upon the 
blockhouse Land and South towards the land of Eadulph Sprag- 
gon." The word " upon " in the phrase " upon the blockhouse 
land" in the Challos patent should be towards, for Challos is 
given as the southern boundary of Sanders in the latter's patent. 
Spraggon's land, an acre, patented in 1644, was bounded 
" South upon the land of Ceo. Gilbert North towards the Way 
leading towards the Mayne West upon the river and East to- 
wards the land of Mr. Hampton." Bauldwin's patent shows 
approximately the former site of Block House Hill, below which 
was the land of Sanders, adjoining whom on the south was 
Challos. Next below came a space, probably unoccupied ex- 
cept by part of the highway, below which, but not adjoining, 
was Spraggon, all about as shown on the " Map of lames Citty." 

Arguments have been presented for the sites of the churches 
used after 1617 and of the graveyard pertaining to them before 
that year, as being adjacent to the tower ruin at the eastern side 
of the four-acre paled town. 

The description of an acre granted to John White in 1644 
reads, "bounded West upon the Church Yard East upon the 
land apprtaining to the State House North towards the land 
of Mr. Thomas Hampton and South upon James Eiver the 
Length being twenty three poles and breadth Seaven poles 
almost." 

The word " towards " in the White patent and also in the 
Spraggon patent with reference to Hampton's land, shows that 
the last named was situated north of the first and east of the 

'Virginia Land Patent Records, Book IV, p. 196. 
"Ibid, Book II, p. 47. 



THE SITE OP OLD " JAMES T0WNE." 71 

second, but in each case at some indefinite, but not remote dis- 
tance, the intervening land not being patented. By projecting 
series of lines east from Spraggon and north from White they 
will intersect on the second ridge about where the Hampton 
land is indicated on the map. 

On account of the peculiar wording of the parts of the Hamp- 
ton patents, describing the relative positions of the tracts on a 
ridge, and the church, viz. ; " behind the church," it is not clear' 
at first glance whether the church and the tracts were on the- 
same, or different ridges. If on the same, the second, the- 
church would have been mentioned in Spraggon's patent, whose 
land was west of Hampton's. jSTo allusion to the church, how- 
ever, occurs in that or any other patent on or near the western 
shore of the island. The particle "behind" is not understood 
as meaning in the rear of the church's back wall, but signifying* 
on the opposite side from where the writer stood or imagined 
he was standing, or possibly as having reference to some other 
object understood but not mentioned, e. g., the churchyard or 
river bank. The above is a sample of the vague and inaccurate 
expressions appearing in some of the patents and too often used 
at the present day. 

As, according to its description, the White tract was on the 
southern bank of the island and the churchyard adjoined it on 
the west, the latter was also on the river bank. Finally, until 
1644 the first ridge belonged to the block house, and the land 
at the western end of the second ridge has been accounted for 
in that year; the third ridge was occupied by buildings from an 
early day (1666), and, therefore, most probably never contained 
the church or graveyard ; all of which also goes to show that the 
church and graveyard were not on the western bank of the 
island. All of the available evidence pertaining to the church, 
therefore, proves that it and the graveyard, in 1644, were on the 
fourth ridge and on the southern water front at the old tower 
ruin. 

Bishop Meade states in effect that the graves near the tower - 
ruin inclosed by a brick wall, before referred to, near the close 



72 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE. 

•of the eighteenth century, cover but a third of the original 
graveyard, which had an area of a half acre. Although the 
graves are in very close order, each one apparently occupying, 
■on an average, about thirty-two square feet, it is evident that a 
half-acre would have sufficed but for a small fraction of those 
who died at " James Citty." 10 

In 1896, as before described, the remnant of the original head- 
land, which still shielded the adjacent river bank below it from 
abrasion, was removed to bring the shore to a fair line for re- 
ceiving protection work, constructed in that year. It is credibly 
stated that when the bank thus exposed was undermined by the 
waves, several human skeletons lying in regular order, east and 
west, about two hundred feet west of the tower ruin were un- 
covered. On account of their nearness to the tower it seems 
quite probable that the skeletons were in the original church- 
yard. One of the skulls had been perforated by a musket ball 
and several buckshot, which it still held, suggesting a military 
execution. Soon after being exposed to the air the skeletons 
crumbled. 

From the evidence of the White patent and the positions of 
the skeletons, it would appear that the churchyard extended 
from the junction of the Back Street with the "old Greate 
Koad," northeast of the church, to near the water side and up 
the latter, including a part of the ground subsequently covered 
by the Confederate fort. Thus situated, it would have had an 
area of about one and one-half acres. 

Judging from the brick bond of the church tower it belonged 
originally to the fourth of the five churches, all of which, except 
the latest one, are more or less briefly referred to in the available 
annals of the colonists. 

The brick church would to-day be regarded as a very plain and 
unpretentious chapel. It was rectangular in plan, having the 
customary high pitched roof on both nave and tower, the 
aisle paved with brick and the chancel with tiles. The tower, 

10 Meade's Old Churches and Families of Virginia, Vol. I, p. III. 




THE TOWER RUIN 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 73 

situated at the western end, on account of being dispro- 
portionately large in comparison with the rest of the struc- 
ture, was the prominent feature. On account of its solidity, it 
was not materially injured by the conflagration of 1676. 
Arched doorways through the front and back walls of the first 
story formed the main entrance. The second story openings 
were most probably a window in the west wall and a door in the 
east wall, the latter opening into a gallery across the western 
end of the nave, as in the " old Brick Church " at Smithfield, 
Va. The third story was probably lighted only by six loop holes, 
two in the front and two in each side wall. The loop holes 
indicate that the intention of the builders of the tower was to 
make it defensible against Indian attack. As, with the defeat 
and death of Opechancanough in 1644, the fear of such attacks 
occurring at Jamestown should have almost entirely dis- 
appeared, it seems likely that the tower was designed and prob- 
ably built before or about that time. The brick work formerly 
separating the openings of the first and second stories having 
broken away, the front and back walls now have high portals 
extending to about twenty and nineteen feet, respectively, above 
the ground. 

The brick work of the tower and foundation is in so-called 
English bond, quaintly embelished, after the fashion of the 
period, with glazed headers. The walls of the ruin were recently 
strengthened by tie rods, with ornamental washers of cruciform 
shape. It is a dignified old pile, of sombre detail, and originally 
had a height of about forty-six feet, to the peak of the spire 
that surmounted it. It is approximately eighteen feet square in 
plan, with walls three feet thick at the base, diminishing by 
offsets in the inner faces at each story to about seventeen inches 
at the belfry. 

Within nave and chancel are interred many unknown dead, 
and, lying with its head to the north, is an ironstone tablet from 
which are missing inlaid brasses with which it was embossed. 
In its present position it does not apear to mark a tomb, for it 
would thus show a violation of the time-revered custom, form- 



74 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

erly universally observed in Christian burials, to place the feet 
towards the rising sun. Whose " death in life " it commemo- 
rated will probably ever remain one of the unsolved mysteries of 
this mysterious island. This tomb stone is probably the only 
one in this country that had brasses. In the upper sinister 
corner was the escutcheon of the deceased. The scroll in the 
upper dexter corner was probably inscribed with a text or short 
prayer. It is conjectured by some that the stone formerly 
marked the grave of Governor, Sir George Yeardley, Knight, 
who died at Jamestown Nov. 12, 1627. The Eev. John 
Clough whose grave stone is shown on the plan of the church, 
was condemned to death by Nathaniel Bacon, " the Eebel," but 
was not executed. 

The "James Citty " brick church resembled the "old Brick 
Church " about five miles from Smithfield, Isle of Wight 
County, Virginia, modernly known as St. Luke's. The latter, 
however, is a larger building than was the former. The points 
in common between the two churches are a tower at the western 
end, and a chancel door on the south side, near the eastern end 
of the nave. The brick work of St. Luke's church, however, is 
laid in so-called Flemish bond, and its tower has quoins at the 
corners, broad friezes at each story and under the eaves and its 
exterior faces broken by offsets at each story. 





THE MYSTERIOUS TABLET. 



The tablet is 5 feet 7'% inches long fay 3 J 34 inches wide. The black 
surfaces show the channelings in the stone formerly filled with metal. The 
inscription plate was about 19 by JO^ inches, and the height of the draped 
figure 24?-g inches. 




The Colonial Legislature. 

;HEN Captain Smith became president of the colony, in 
1608, he styled the meeting of the colonists which he 
called to announce that thereafter those who would 
not work must starve, a " generall assembly/' 1 

A peculiar feature of the first colonial legislature, and appar- 
ently of those of many ensuing years, was that both of its 
branches, the governor's council and the House of Burgesses, 
met in joint session, after the fashion of the Scotch Parliament. 

According to Beverley, this custom obtained until 1680, when 
Governor Culpeper, " taking advantage of some disputes among 
them," caused the two bodies to hold their sessions in separate 
apartments/ the council being presided over by the governor 
and the House of Burgesses by a speaker of its own election. 

It was resolved at a session of the House of Burgesses in 
March, 1658, that "they" — "all propositions and lawes" — 
" shall be first discussed among the Burgesses only " * * * " in 
private" * * * "and not in presence of the Governour and 
Council." 3 The above action of the burgesses, evincing a 
desire to assert the independence of their body, was a precursor 
of the discontinuance of joint sessions, above noted by Beverley. 

From what follows, the custom of holding joint sessions 
apparently had been discontinued before 1680, although it had 
been customary for two of the members of the council to attend 
the sessions of the burgesses, as shown in " T. M.'s " 4 account 
of Bacon's Eebellion. 

1 Works, Captain John Smith, p. 149. 

2 History of the present State of Virginia, by Robert Beverley, p. 
187. 

s Hening , s Statutes, Vol. I, p. 497. 

4 The Beginning, Progress and Conclusion of Bacon's Rebellion in 
Virginia, in the Years 1675-1676, p. 13.— Force's Historical Tracts, 
"Vol. I. — " T. M." is supposed by Campbell and Fiske to have been 

[75] 



76 THE SITE OE OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

The ostensible purpose of the presence of the councillors was 
to assist the burgesses in conducting their proceedings in a par- 
liamentary manner. The real object, obviously, was to keep the 
governor fully apprised of all that occurred in this democratic 
and often intractable body. This was fully understood by the 
burgesses, some of whom on the occasion referred to by " T. 
M.," manifested their unwillingness to have the councillors 
present. 

Prior to its session in September, 1632, the colonial legislature 
of Virginia was styled " The General Assembly." Beginning 
with the above session, it was called " The Grand Assembly," 
which title it bore until the session of June, 1680, when the 
former appellation was revived. 

Thomas Mathews, son of Samuel Mathews, governor of Virginia, 
1657-1659. (Campbell's History of Virginia, p. 284, and Fiske's Old 
Virginia and Tier Neighbors, Vol. II, p. 66.) The available evidence 
is quite conclusive that " T. M." was Thomas Mathew, and not 
Thomas Mathews, a son of the governor. See Notes and Queries, by 
W. G. Stanard, Virginia Historical Magazine, Vol. I. (1893-1894), 
pp. 201 and 202. He was a timid, cautious man, who unwillingly 
became the representative of Stafford county in the first Assembly 
after the " Long Assembly." 




" James Citty" State Houses. 

fjjjfHE first General Assembly, as previously stated, was con- 
vened in the third church, referred to in a preceding! 
|s$ chapter as having its foundations inclosed by those of its 
successor, the first brick church, erected between 1639 
and 1647. 

The available information concerning the various buildings 
used for subsequent meetings of the legislature and for holding 
courts is too incomplete, meagre and obscure to be reduced to a 
succinct and entirely satisfactory statement. Following are 
deductions from the available data pertinent to the subject, 
which are given in subsequent pages : 

During about the first two decades after 1619 there were at 
least twelve sessions of the legislature. They were probably 
held either in the third church or at the governor's house. 
There were also held during the above period sessions of the 
court and meetings of the governor and council. From the 
latter the proclamations of the governor that were intended to 
take the place of legislative enactments, were probably promul- 
gated. 1 

During the next six decades, while " James Citty " remained 
the seat of government, there were apparently four different 
state house buildings, all of which were burned. The time they 
were occupied collectively amounted to about forty-three years. 
During the intervals between the burning of the several state- 
houses and the acquiring of new ones, amounting in the aggre- 
gate approximately to seventeen years, taverns were used for 
the meetings of the Assembly and the sessions of the courts. 

As in April, 1641, the colonial government purchased from 
ex-Governor Harvey, who about a year before was adjudged a 
bankrupt, one of his houses, known as the courthouse, the 

1 Eening , s Statutes, Vol. I, p. 120. 

[77] 



78 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

courts and meetings of the governor and council were no doubt 
held there, and probably also the meetings of the whole legis- 
lature. The above building, therefore, most probably consti- 
tuted the first state house. 

In June, 1642, the Grand Assembly presented Governor 
Berkeley with two houses and a tract of land adjacent to them, 
at "James Citty." Between the above year and 1655, Gov- 
ernor Berkeley erected a house adjoining on the west the first 
state house, which thus became the middlemost of three houses, 
all having the same dimensions in plan, viz., forty by twenty 
feet, and forming a block with a frontage on the river of sixty 
feet and a depth of forty feet. The block was sixty-seven feet 
from the southern bank of the island and about forty-five yards 
below the present wharf. The bank probably having receded 
slightly, its site would now be somewhat nearer the present bank 
line. 

The middle house of the block was used as a state house for 
about thirteen years longer, or until some time between March, 
1655, and June, 1656, when it would seem to have been burned. 
After the burning of the above building two courts were held in 
a tavern kept by Thomas Woodhouse. 

The available information about the second state house is scant 
and indirect. The building appears to have been acquired some 
time before October, 1656. All that is known of it is learned 
from a reference to it in a patent of the above year from which 
it appears to have been situated on the fourth ridge. It appar- 
ently was used for but three or four years, and then burned. 

During the ensuing five years, or until about 1665, the 
colony's affairs seem to have been transacted in part, if not 
entirely, in taverns belonging to Thomas Woodhouse and Thomas 
Hunt, situated on the river bank about one hundred and three 
hundred yards respectively, east of the first state house. About 
the above year a house was purchased or built by the colonial 
government on the third ridge about two hundred and forty 
yards northwest of the brick church, and this served as the 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 79 

state house until burned by Nathaniel Bacon, Jr., in September, 
1676. 

During the ten years following, or until about 1686, the 
expedient of using taverns for meetings of the legislature was 
again resorted to. In the above year the re-building of the 
state house was completed. As it was on the site of its prede- 
cessor, it most probably had the same proportions, which in 
plan were about seventy-four feet long and twenty feet wide, 
within the walls. This was the last state house building 
erected at "James Citty." It was occupied for about twelve 
years, and was burned in the fall of 1698. The Assembly held 
its last session at "James Citty," in April, 1699, when it was 
decreed to move the capital to Williamsburg. 

Subjoined are the data on which the foregoing is based. 

The earliest available evidence of the colony's intention to ^ 
build a state house appears in a letter from its governor, Sir 
John Harvey, Knight, and his council to the Privy Council, 
dated January 18, 1639, in which it is stated that by the king's 
command a levy had been raised for the above purpose. 2 One 
year later, during the session of the Grand Assembly beginning 
January 6, 1639-40/ an act was passed providing for defraying 
the cost of building a state house by a poll assessment of two 
pounds of tobacco. 

On April 7, 1641, about fifteen months after the passage of 
the above act, Sir John Harvey conveyed to the colonial gov- 
ernment, for 15,700 pounds of tobacco, to be paid the following 
January, 4 " all that capital messuage or tenement now used for 
a court house late in the tenure of Sir John Harvey, Knt., 

2 McDonald Papers, Vol. I, p. 249. 

s Hening's Statutes, Vol. I, p. 226. — The acts of several of the 
Assemblies between 1619 and 1642 are not known to be in existence. 
They are only known to have been framed by allusions to them in 
acts passed at other sessions, contained in Hening's Statutes, and 
from being mentioned in the land patents, in official correspondence, 
and in the minutes of the London Company. 

*The poll assessment of January, 1640, would have become due 
January, 1641. 



80 THE SITE OE OLD ' JAMES TOWNE. 

situate and being within James City Island in Virginia with the 
old house and granary, garden and orchard as also one piece or 
plot of ground lying and being on the west side of the said cap- 
ital and messuage as the same is now inclosed." 5 The above 
conveyance shows that the court had been holding its sessions 
in a house owned by Sir John Harvey, and it seems quite likely 
that the assessment of January, 1639-40, was expended in buy- 
ing Harvey's houses and lot, one of the former being the court 
house. It is more than possible that the Grand Assembly had 
also been meeting in the same house. It seems most probable 
that the above building was the one mentioned in patents 
referred to below as " the old state house," whose location is 
given further on. 

In a letter of instructions from King Charles I to Governor 
Berkeley and the Colonial Council in August, 1641, the building 
of a state house is ordered. 

By an act of Assembly passed in June, 1642, two houses and 
an orchard "belonging to the colony" were presented to Gov- 
ernor Berkeley. This act was confirmed by another passed at 
the session of March, 1642. 6 

In February, 1643, a patent was issued to Captain Eobert 
Hutchinson, burgess from "James Citty," for one and one-half 
acres situated on the south shore of the island and bounded 
west in part " towards " the state house. 7 It appears from the 
Hutchinson patent that by 1643 the previous acts of Assembly 
for procuring a state house had gone into effect, and that the 
building was on the south shore of the island. 

B Transcripts of Miscellaneous MSS., by Conway Robinson, p. 188. 

6 Hening's Statutes, Vol. I, p. 267. 

7 Va. Land Pat. Records, Book I, p. 944. 

Hutchinson's patent reads " bounded South upon the river North 
towards Pasby Hayes, West upon the land of John Osborne & 
'towards the State House." As the tract could not have been 
situated on the southern bank of the island and at the same time 
been in a southerly direction from Paspahegh town, which was on 
the main land above the island, either some other locality named 
Pasby Hayes was referred to or an error made in describing the 
tract or transcribing the patent. 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 81 

In August, 1644, a patent previously quoted from was issued 
to John White for one acre of land lying along the south shore 
of the island, between the churchyard on the west and the state 
house land on the east. 8 This locates the state house with 
reference to the churclryard in 1644, whose position has already 
been determined, and places the western boundary of the state 
house grounds about twelve yards below the present wharf, or 
about seventy yards below the eastern boundary of the land now 
owned by the Association for the Preservation of Virginia 
Antiquities. 

On March 30, 1655, Sir William Berkeley sold to Bichard 
Bennett, who had succeeded him as governor in 1652, his house, 
" the westernmost of the three brick houses," which the deed 
recites the grantor had built. 9 The deed, however, does not 
show that the ground on which the house stood and that adjacent 
to it was sold with the house. The above mentioned land was 
granted to Thomas Ludwell and Thomas Stegge, January 1, 1667. 
Its area was a half acre. It was situated on the southern shore 
of the island " adjoyning to the westermost of those three houses 
all of which joyntly were formerly called by the name of the 
old state house/' sixty-seven feet from high-water mark. 10 From 
what follows the patent apparently did not include the house, or, 
more correctly, its ruins. 

Henry Eandolph, clerk of the court, sold the ruins of the 
three houses and the grounds they respectively covered, April 
7, 1671, u as follows: The eastern house ruins and grounds to 
Thomas Swann, of the county of Surry ; the middle, or " old 
state house" proper, to Nathaniel Bacon [Sr.], executor of the 
estate of Colonel Myles Cary/ 2 and the western to Thomas 

8 Va. Land Pat. Records, Book II, p. 10. 

9 Hening's Statutes, Vol. I, p. 407. 

10 Virginia Land Patent Records, Book VI, p. 223. 

11 Conway Robinson's Transcripts of Miscellaneous Manuscripts, p. 
258, from General Court Rule Book No. 2, pp. 155, 617. 

13 Colonel Gary came to Virginia in 1645, constructed the first fort 
on site of Fort Monroe, and was killed there in an engagement with 
the Dutch, in 1667. 
6— J. T. 



82 THE SITE OE OLD " JAMES TOWNE. 

Ludwell. By his will, proved May 15, 1671, Thomas Stegge left 
to Thomas Ludwell his interest in a house bought jointly with 
Ludwell of Henry Eandolph. 13 Ludwell subsequently secured 
a patent for a half acre of land adjoining the house ruins and 
sold the property to Sir William Berkeley for one hundred and 
fifty pounds sterling, March 17, 1672. 14 

It seems most probable that the building erected by Governor 
Berkeley between 1642 and 1655 and sold by him to Richard 
Bennett in the latter year, the one referred to in the patent to 
Ludwell and Stegge of 1667, that sold by Eandolph to Thomas 
Ludwell in 1671, and by Ludwell to Berkeley in 1672, were one 
and the same. 

The foregoing proves conclusively that the first state house 
was near the southern bank of the island and eastward of the 
old tower ruin. 

It also seems probable that the orchard land and two houses 
donated to Governor Berkeley in March, 1642-43, were the same 
bought by the Grand Assembly from Sir John Harvey in April, 
1641, and paid for in January following, and that the building 
previously referred to as being built by Berkeley was an addition 
made by him on the western side of the Harvey buildings. The 
westernmost of the two buildings previously owned by Harvey, 
therefore, became the middlemost of the block. It had been 
used as a courthouse in his time, as stated above, and constituted 
the state house during Berkeley's first term. 

In the description of a tract of land patented to John Bauld- 
win in October, 1656, as previously noted, the land of Eichard 
James is given as its eastern boundary, and "the slash which 
lyeth between the State House [land] and the said Mr. James " 
as its southern. 15 Eichard James' land, of which patent was re- 
corded June 5, 1657, included one hundred and fifty acres of the 
second ridge east of a " northerly " line passing " by " the 

13 Genealogical Gleanings in England, p. 102. 

u Robinson's Transcripts, p. 258. 

15 Va. Land Pat. Records, Book IV, p. 88. 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWKE." 83 

" Friggett Landing," to the marsh below " Pyping Point/' w 
including forty acres granted in 1654. 17 The slash, forming 
Bauldwin's southern boundary, was the upper branch of " Pitch 
and Tarr Swamp," which is the northern boundary of the third 
and fourth ridges. The state house referred to in the patent, 
or probably more precisely the state house land, would seem to 
have been on the fourth ridge, as the part of the third ridge 
east of James' western line prolonged is very low ground. 

During the session of the Assembly in October, 1666, an act 
was passed confirming the ownership of land held under unre- 
corded patents, on the grounds that their being unrecorded 
resulted from the neglect of the clerks and the destruction of 
the records by " two severall fires." 18 The above indicates that 
the repositories of the records — two state houses — had been 
burned prior to 1666. The " two severall fires," therefore, were 
doubtless those of the " old state house " — the first state house, 
on the southern island bank — and its successor, referred to in 
the Bauldwin patent, on the fourth ridge. 

As Governor Berkeley sold his house in the " old state house " 
block to Governor Bennett, March 30, 1655, and as the Assembly 
passed an act during the session beginning December 1, 1656, 
providing for the payment of 2,500 pounds of tobacco to 
Thomas Woodhouse for house rent for the accommodation of 
the committee and for two sittings of the quarter courts, 19 held 
probably in June and September, 1656, preceding, it would 
appear that the first state house was burned between March, 
1655, and June, 1656. 

The second state house was probably improvised out of a 
private dwelling, for in those days of great inertia the four to 
seven months interval between the burning of the first state 
house and the issuing of the Bauldwin patent which contains 

16 Ibid, Book IV, p. 196. 

17 Ibid, Book III, p. 368. 
^Hening's Statutes, Vol. II, p. 245. 
19 Ibid, Vol. I, p. 425. 



84 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

the allusion to the second state house seems hardly long enough 
for erecting a building. 

The second state house was probably burned shortly before 
1660, for during the session of the Assembly in October of that 
year, house rent incurred for Assembly meetings amounting to 
3,500 pounds of tobacco, and for meetings of the governor and 
Council amounting to 4,000 pounds of the same medium of 
exchange were appropriated and ordered paid to Thomas Hunt 
and Thomas Woodhouse, respectively. 20 

During the above session Governor Berkeley was requested 
by the Assembly to take charge of the building of a state house 
and authorized to pay liabilities incurred therefor out of the 
public funds and those to be thereafter raised by act of Assem- 
bly. He was also authorized to impress ten men to work on the 
building. 21 

In 1654 a grant of an acre lot on the southern water front of 
the town was made to Thomas Woodhouse. 22 Judging from the 
agreement of direction of the lot's southern boundary, as given 
in the patent, with the part of the river bank one hundred yards 
east of the first state house, or just west of the turf fort, the lot 
was near that locality. A grant of one acre on the same shore 
about two hundred yards further east, was also made to Thomas 
Hunt in 1655. 23 It is possible that the above tracts were those 
on which were situated the taverns, in which rooms were rented 
for meetings of the Assembly and for holding court. Their de- 
scriptions in the patents, however, are insufficient to definitely 
locate them. Thomas Woodhouse in 1694 owned a tract on 
the crest of the fourth ridge, just west of the Ambler mansion, 
on which, possibly, his tavern was situated. 

During a session of the Assembly in March, 1660-1661, the 
expense of renting halls for holding its meetings and those of 
the court was urged as a cogent reason for acquiring a state 

^Hening's Statutes, Vol. II, p. 12. 

21 Ibid, Vol. II, p. 13. 

22 Va. Land Pat. Records, Book III, p. 38a 
^Hening's Statutes, Vol. II, p. 38. 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 85 

house, and, with a view to making the necessary taxation for the 
purpose as light as possible, it was resolved to solicit subscrip- 
tions. The governor, councillors, and burgesses headed the 
list of subscribers, donating considerable sums of money and 
tobacco, to be paid out of the next crop. After a lapse of over 
two years the matter was again brought up in the Assembly, on 
September 16, 1663. 24 The question as then submitted was, 
" Since the charge the country is yearly at for houses for the 
quarter courts and assemblys to sit in would in two or 3 years 
defray the purchase of a state house. Whether it were not more 
profitable to purchase for that purpose then continue for ever 
at the expence, accompanied with the dishonor of all our laws 
being made and our judgments given in alehouses." 

On the day following a committee of six burgesses was 
appointed to confer with the governor about a state house. 20 

Under date of April 10, 1665, Thomas Ludwell, colonial secre- 
tary of state, wrote Lord Arlington that the rebuilding of the 
town in brick was sufficiently advanced to furnish the necessary 
buildings in which to transact the business of the colony. The 
buildings referred to by Ludwell were probably some of those 
erected in furtherance of the act of Assembly of December, 
1662, for rebuilding the town with brick houses, 28 and it is 
probable that the meaning of the letter was that the state house 
building was completed. 

There does not appear to be extant any description of the 
third state house. The following extract from a message 
addressed to the House by the governor during the session of 
the Assembly of 1685 w shows that the third and fourth state 
house buildings occupied the same site and probably were of the 
same shape and proportions : " This day an addresse and some 
orders of yr. House have been presented to me & ye Council by 
some of yr. members, and doe much wonder, you should pro- 

24 IUd, Vol. II, p. 204. 

25 IUd, Vol. II, p. 205. 

28 IUd, Vol. II, pp. 172, 173. 

27 McDonald Papers, Vol. VII, pp. 379, 380. 



86 THE SITE OP OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

pose soe unreasonably, as to desire our concurrence, in ye memo- 
rial [removal?] of ye secretaries office, wch. ever since ye state 
House was first built, until burnt, has been continued in ye place 
you allot for an office for ye Clerk, soe that Mr. Secretary justly 
claims it by prescription, and you yrselves have soe consented 
and alsoe desired, that it be enlarged as by ye agreement made 
ye last Gen'l Assembly with Col. Ludwell." The spot, there- 
fore, is established where, in June, 1676, Bacon, at the head of 
his little army, demanded a commission to proceed against 
and chastise the Indians, and where the testy old governor, while 
baring his breast, reiterated the words, " here ! shoot me, 'f ore 
God, fair mark, shoot." 

After the burning of the third state house in September, 1676, 
it was proposed to rebuild the town, retaining its original name, 
at Tindall's Point, 28 now known as Gloucester Point, on York 
Eiver. Gloucester Point at this time was a prosperous settle- 
ment and being on salt water was probably very healthy. 
" James Towne," however, was not yet to be abandoned, and in 
about eight years the rebuilding of the state house on the old 
site was begun. 

In the interim between the burning of the third state house 
and its rebuilding, the expedient of using taverns for holding 
the sessions of the Grand Assembly, as had been twice done 
when the colony had lost its capitol by fire, was again resorted 
to, allowances of tobacco being made to Mr. Henry Gauler for 
several meetings of the court and Assembly held at his tavern. 29 
In the 1685 session of the General Assembly an agreement was 
entered into with Mr. William Sherwood for the use of "his 
great Hall, and ye back room on ye same floor and ye cellar 
under ye said room," for courthouse purposes, during the en- 
suing year, including " fire, candle and attendance," at twenty- 
five pounds sterling per annum. 30 Sherwood's house was un- 

88 Hening's Statutes, Vol. II, p. 405. 

29 McDonald Papers, Vol. VII, pp. 372, 376. 

S0 IMd, pp. 385, 388 



« 



s 

s ° 



A 










THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 87 

doubtedly on the site of the acre lot bought by him in 1681, on 
which stood the country house. 

The approximate site of the fourth state house is learned from 
the following quotation from a patent to William Sherwood, 
recorded April 20, 1694: a "grant unto William Sherwood of 
James City Gent, 308 acres of land Scituate lying and being in 
James City and James City Island, beginning on James Eiver 
at the head of Pitch and Tarr Swamp next above the state house 
and running along the North side thereof" [branch of swamp]. 
A study of the above patent leaves no room for doubting that 
the branch of swamp referred to was the upper branch, from 
which it follows that the building stood on the third ridge. 

The site of the fourth state house was unknown until early in 
1903, when, as before stated, it was located by the author. A 
few references to its predecessor occur in " T. M.'s account 
of Bacon's Eebellion. This narrative, written thirty years after 
the above revolution, shows that the state house of 1666-1676 
was a two-story building. At the eastern end of the first story 
was an apartment used as the council chamber and for court 
house purposes. In the second story was the Assembly room of 
the House of Burgesses, "a long room." From the manner in 
which the " end of the state house " is referred to by " T. M.," 
it might appear that the building had but one free end. This 
accords with the plan of the fourth state house, the western end 
of which, as discovered by excavating its foundations, adjoined 
the easternmost of Philip Ludwell's three houses referred to 
below. 82 The Ludwell tract had an area of one and one-half 
acres, in the shape of an oblong rectangle, with its northern 
boundary "near the Pitch and Tarr Swamp." The patent 
shows that the northern and southern fronts of three houses, of 
which the tract contained the ruins, had collectively the same 
length, viz., three and three-fourths chains, 38 or one hundred and 

31 Va. Land Pat. Records, Book VIII, p. 384. 

82 Force's Historical Tracts, Vol. I, p. 16. — Bacon's Rebellion. 

83 The chain used in the " James Citty " surveys was two poles, or 
thirty-three feet long. 



88 THE SITE OE OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

twenty-three and three-fourths feet, and about the same azimuth 
as the north and south boundary lines of the tract. 

In February, 1903, the earth overlying the walls found during 
the preceding month by probing on the crest of the third ridge 
where it seemed probable the ruins of the three houses men- 
tioned in the Ludwell patent of 1694 had stood, was removed 
on the recommendation of the author, by the Association 
for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, when the brick 
foundations of a former row of buildings about two hun- 
dred and forty feet long by about twenty-four to forty-six feet 
wide, were disclosed at one to five feet below the surface. The 
foundations are on the highest part of the ridge where its 
elevation is about two and one-half to three and one-half feet 
above great tides. The ground falls gently from the foundations 
towards the east, and the shapes of the contours indicate that 
the part of the ridge abraded by the waves sloped towards the 
western shore. 

The foundations are divided by heavy cross-walls into five 
principal divisions. The main walls are about two feet thick, 
the cross-walls from fourteen inches to two feet. 

As above explained, the westernmost foundations belonged to 
the " Country House," those of the next three buildings to the 
ruins of Philip LudwelPs houses and the easternmost to the 
state house. All of the buildings except the state house were 
about forty feet square within the walls. A small proportion of 
the underpinning of the northernmost wall of the middle and 
eastern Ludwell houses is granite rubble. With the above 
exception the walls rest on a bed of mortar about two inches 
thick. On account of the base of the foundations being of 
different material, as above noted, and of the cross walls north 
of the middle main wall being out of line with those south of it, 
it is surmised that the northern halves of the two houses alluded 
to were constructed at a different period from the southern 
halves, possibly a later one. The inside dimensions of the 
earlier houses would, therefore, have been twenty by forty feet, 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWKE." 89 

"thus according with the specifications contained in the statute 
of December, 1662, for rebuilding the town. 

The remains of several immense fire places are found in all of 
the buildings excepting the state house. The fire places are 
generally about eight feet long between the jambs. One, in the 
southern half of the "Country House/' is eight and a half feet 
long. The jambs project about three feet from the walls. 

The buildings appear to have been divided into apartments 
about twenty feet square by the fire places and heavy partition 
walls. 

The foundations of two of the partitions are T-shaped. It is 
conjectured that the spaces between the heads of the T's and 
the southern porches were approximately square halls, with a 
room at either end. The spaces between the T-heads and the 
middle main wall of either side of the stem of the T were prob- 
ably utilized as lockers or closets. The obliquity of the T par- 
tition and also of the porch of the middle Ludwell house with 
reference to the main walls cannot be satisfactorily explained. 
It may have been the result of careless work of the builder, or it 
may indicate that the main walls belonged to buildings erected 
at different periods from the other parts referred to. The 
floors of two of the rooms were paved with brick, parts of the 
paving still remaining. 

Brick foundations of several porches projecting from the 
southern main wall indicate that the buildings faced the south. 
One of the porches adjoins the middle of the state house, two 
others the easternmost and middle Ludwell houses. They were 
about ten feet square inside. Their foundation walls are eigh- 
teen to twenty-two inches thick. At the eastern end of the 
middle Ludwell house are what appear to have been the founda- 
tions of another and smaller porch eight and one-half feet 
square inside the walls. It may have belonged to a house 
erected prior to 1665. 

Under the northern half of the westernmost Ludwell house 
was found a cellar, twenty by forty feet by about six feet deep, 
filled with the brick of fallen walls. The cellar is paved with 



90 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

brick. In the floor is a pit three and one-half feet square by 
three feet deep,, with brick-lined sides. Leading from the pit to 
what was apparently formerly a hole about a foot in diameter is 
a shallow drain. It is possible that the pit was for draining the 
cellar, but it is far more probable that it was a well. On the 
floor of the cellar were several sheets of melted lead, and among 
the brick debris were a " sacar " shot, also two bombshells — one 
of the calibre of a demi-culverin, the other of a sacar — and frag- 
ments of exploded shells. The above warlike relics may have 
been fired in 1676 from Bacon's trench near the north end of the 
isthmus. The cellar is entered by a fight of steps on its 
northern side. A pipe, scissors, steel sewing-thimble, copper 
candle stick, ladies' riding-stirrup, and an old bottle, all of 
quaint and antique shapes, found in the cellar, form additions to 
the Association's relics. 

The bond of the brick work of the cellar walls is the same as 
that of the foundations and tower ruin of the brick church of 
1639-47 — viz., the so-called English bond. This bond is found 
in Flanders, Holland, and Ehenish Germany, from which coun- 
tries it appears to have been introduced into Great Britain. 34 Its 
employment at " James Towne " is probably to be accounted 
for by several of the residents of the town during its fourth 
decade being German or Dutch brickmakers and bricklayers. 

" The Country House " is separated from the Ludwell build- 
ings by an eighteen-inch party wall. Under its northern half 
was an unpaved cellar entered by a flight of steps on the north 
side similar to those of the Ludwell cellar. 

The foundations of the state house show that it was about 
seventy-four feet by twenty feet within the walls. It was divided 
by a fourteen-inch cross wall into two parts, one about forty- 
two, the other obout thirty-one feet long. Projecting from the 
middle of the north wall are foundations of a wing about fifteen 
feet square within the walls, referred to below. On each side of 
the wing is a projection which may have belonged to bay win- 

84 Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol. IV, page 461. 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 91 ! 

dows or fireplaces. If not to the latter, the state house prob- 
ably was not heated, as there are no other indications of fire- 
places in the building. 

The general plan of the state house, with its north wing and 
south porch, is symmetrical. 

From the original transcript of the Journal of the General 
Assembly, held at Jamestown in May, 1684 * it is learned that 
during that session a committee consisting of " Coll Kendall — 
Capt: Fra: Page — Capt: Eobinson — Coll George Mason — Mr. 
Hen : Hartwell — Major Allen and Mr. Sherwood," was appointed 
to consider the rebuilding of the state house and to ascertain its 
cost. The committee was also instructed to submit with its re- 
port the proposals of any persons willing to perform the work. 
The committee acted promptly and its report ** was as promptly 
approved by the House. The report was then submitted to the 
governor, who appointed Mr. Sherwood to draw up a contract 
"between his Exlncy & the Speaker in behalf e of the Generall 
Assembly and the Hon ble Coll Phillip Ludwell for the Eebuild- 
ing the state house." 

The only available data pertaining to the arrangement of the 
interior of the building are the allusions to it in " T. M.'s " 
account of Bacon's Eebellion, and the Journal of the General 
Assembly held at "James Citty" in November and December, 
1685 ^ quoted from above. 

During the above session the rebuilding of the state house was 
probably nearly completed, and it was ordered by the House 
"That Mr. Auditor Bacon pay to Col. Philip Ludwell fower 
hundred pounds sterling out of ye Moneys accruing from ye 
duty of three pence pr. gallon upon liquors, for and in consid- 
eration of rebuilding ye State House, upon payment of wch 

^Colonial Record Book, Vol. 85, pp. 168—207, P. R. O., London, 
England. 

86 Miss Ethel B. Sainsbury, of London, England, who examined and 
made transcripts of portions of the above documents for the author 
states that the committee's report does not appear in the files of the 
London P. R. O. 

37 McDonald Papers, Vol. VII, p. 312, et seg. 



92 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

money, Mr. Auditor is desired to take bond from Col. Ludwell 
for ye full compleating of ye House, in such manner as shall be 
fully satisfactory to his Excellency ye Council & ye House of 
Burgesses answerably good and equivalent to the condition of 
ye same/' 88 

From the same Journal of the Assembly it is learned that the 
Assembly room wherein the burgesses met most probably occu- 
pied the entire second floor of the main building, and that 
adjoining the Assembly room was a smaller apartment referred 
to as the porch room or porch chamber, which in the third state 
house had been used as the secretary's office and as a repository 
of the colonial records. This room, as shown by the extracts 
from the Assembly Journal, was a bone of contention between 
the governor (Lord Howard of Effingham) and the burgesses, 
and no doubt had much to do with the subsequent persecution 
of Eobert Beverley, clerk of the Assembly. It is conjectured 
that the porch room was over the south porch. 

The chamber used for the double purpose of holding sessions 
of the court and meetings of the Council was on the first floor — 
probably represented by the larger of the two divisions, the 
eastern, formed by the fourteen-inch cross wall. The smaller, 
or western, was used as a waiting-room for those having business 
at court. A part of the latter, at its western end, was cut off by 
a wooden partition in 1685 or 1686 for an office for the secre- 
tary of state. It is likely that there was a wide hall in the 
first story connecting the south porch and the north wing, and 
as " T. M." states that he saw the Council in session through 
the open doorway while on his way up to the Assembly, it seems 
likely that the hall contained the staircase. 

As the foundations of the north wing are but fourteen inches 
thick, they probably carried walls but one story high, which 
prior to 1686 may have belonged to the office of the clerk of the 
Assembly. 

88 Ibid, p. 366. 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 93 

Subjoined are extracts from the Journal of the Assembly in 
December, 1685, the authority for some of the foregoing deduc- 
tions: 

" Eesolved by ye House, that ye room in ye state House, 
called ye Porch Chamber be kept and appropriated an office for 
ye Clk of ye Assbly and yt Eobert Beverley 39 ye present Clerk 
take possession thereof and therein Lodge and place all Eecords, 
Books and Papers, .belonging to ye Assembly, wch either now are 
or for ye time to come shall be committed to his charge keeping 
or Custody. 

Ordered that this resolve of ye House be sent to his Excel- 
lency and ye Councel, with ye requests of this House for their 
concurrence therein. 

Proposed by ye House, yt ye lower room in the state House 
opposite to ye Court House room be with all possible expidition 
fitted for ye Secretaries Office, And this House doe pray his 
Excellency will please to command and direct ye doing thereof, 
and yt the Honble Col Ludwell be treated with about it 

Xber 4th 1685 

Signed by Order of ye House of Burgesses 

Kobt. Beverley, Clk Assbly " 

" Xber 8th 1685. 
By ye House of Burgesses 
To his Excellency and ye Council. 

This House having read and considered yr Exclies late answer 
to ye resolve of this House, appointing ye room called ye Porch 
room in ye State House for an office for their Clerk, and that ye 
lower room under ye Assembly room may be fitted, soe much 
thereof, as is necessary, for an office for Mr. Secretary, doe now 
again supplicate yr Excellency and ye Council, will please to 
concur with them therein, for although they doe acknowledge 

88 Although this name is now spelled both with and without an e 
in the last syllable, the former style appears to have been that used 
by the above-mentioned person. 



94 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

yt ye sd porch room att ye first building of ye State House was 
made use of for an office for ye Secretary, yet ye House of Bur- 
gesses whilst it soe remained, all along observed it, both incon- 
venient and incommodious to them whilst sitting; there being 
nothing spoken or proposed in ye House, that was not equally 
to be heard there, as wel as in ye Assembly room itself e, besides 
ye same gave continuall opportunity to all sorts of psons to 
crowd before the Assembly room, under pretence of coming to 
ye Office. 

And this House doe again propose to your Excelcy & Honrs 
such part of ye room, under ye Assembly rooms, as is necessary 
for ye Secretaries office, wch by seeling ye Walls and raising ye 
floor will become as safe & commodious for preservation of ye 
Records, as its possible any other place can be made, wch they 
doubt not will soe appear to yr Excellency and ye Councel, to 
whom they submit ye manner of doing and directions thereof, 
and againe request ye acceptance thereof, to that purpose. 

Test Eobert Beverley Clk Assbly. 

The following answer was ordered to be returned. 
By His Excellency & Council. 

Your reasons given for ye Porch room to remaine an office for 
your Clerk, have been considered and agreed to, upon condition 
his Majestys Secretary upon ye first notice given him, be content 
that his office shall be in ye lower room you propose wch is not 
in ye least to be doubted, and that you will provide, that a strong 
partition be made under ye second girder, att ye West end of ye 
said room, ye floor raised two foot from ye ground, ye walls 
ceeled, with sawen boards smoothd and battened, and ye Win- 
dows iron barred, and shutters or Window leaves, of half inch 
board with a crosse barr to each, with shelves, table & benches 
to be well done and compleatly finished before ye next general 
court, att ye charge of ye Country, to be paid for ye next Gen- 
eral Assembly, and that you agree with some workman accord- 
ingly.'' 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 95 

It is interesting to note that Robert Beverley, who was the 
clerk of the Assembly in 1685, probably never occupied the 
porch chamber as an office, for by a letter from King James II, 
dated August 1, 1686, he was forever disqualified for holding 
office, the reason assigned for which in the letter being that he 
had "chiefly occasioned and promoted those disputes and con- 
tests " of the Assembly, in the stormy session of 1685. The 
king's letter also deprived the House of the privilege of electing 
its clerk, transferring to the governor authority to fill the posi- 
tion by appointment, and ordered Beverley's prosecution for 
altering the records. 40 Beverley died shortly before April, 1687. 

By an order of the General Assembly there was to be placed 
a " railing with rails and banisters of Locust or Cedar wood laid 
double in Oyle & and as close as may be ye forepart of ye State 
House, of convenient height & att convenient distance from ye 
House." tt The above is taken to mean that the railing was to 
be placed across the Assembly room to exclude spectators from 
the part of the hall appointed for the sessions of the burgesses. 

In uncovering the foundations it was discovered that nearly 
all of the brick of which the walls were composed and parts of 
those belonging to the foundations had been removed, also some 
of the brick paving. 

It is inferred from finding fragments of slate and tiles around 
the foundations that the roofs of the buildings were covered 
with those materials. They were specified in the statute of De- 
cember, 1662. 

The row of buildings was probably completed about 1666, 
burned in 1676, and partly rebuilt in 1685 and 1686. The re- 
mainder of the row was possibly rebuilt between 1694 and 1698. 
The buildings comprising it were destroyed in the fire of Octo- 
ber 31, 1698. 

The foregoing views as to the arrangement of rooms in the 
fourth state house are exhibited on the accompanying plate. 

t0 Hening's Statutes, Vol. Ill, page 41. 
"■ McDonald Papers, Vol. VII, p. 397. 



96 THE SITE OE OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

During the fall and early winter of 1903 the Association built 
up the foundations to the level of the ground with concrete and 
the walls of the cellars with the original brick. On account of 
the brick being very fragile the cellar walls were protected with 
cement plaster. 

From what has preceded it is evident that the " James Citty " 
state houses, although substantial, were not imposing structures. 
In the case of the first, third and fourth, they formed part of a 
row or block of buildings. 

It is not surprising that the colony, which a few years before 
the building of the fourth state house had a population of but 
50,000 to 60,000 free holders, 12 could not afford out of its pov- 
erty and under its heavy burden of taxation, to have any better 
public buildings. The annual allowances of Culpeper as governor 
in 1681, alone, drained the colony of 2,150 pounds sterling, 48 
which, with the perquisite of five hundred pounds sterling 
for house rent, reduced to present values, aggregated about 
$50,000. 

Eecurring to the Journal of the General Assembly of 1685, 
it contains a resolution of the House of Burgesses providing for 
building a prison not concurred in by the governor and Coun- 
cil. 44 A prison was probably erected after the completion of 
the fourth state house, for one was burned in the fire of Octo- 
ber, 1698. 45 

The last meeting of the Assembly at " James Citty " was held 
in April, 1699, in some building unknown. At the above ses- 
sion an act was passed for removing the seat of government to 
Williamsburg. In the four succeeding years the college of Wil- 
liam and Mary was used as a state house. In 1705 the capitol 
building at Williamsburg was completed. It was occupied un- 
til burned about 1747. The college was again used as a state 

42 Sainsbury's Calendar of State Papers, Vol. 1681-1685. 

43 The Present State of Virginia, p. 31, Hartwell, Chilton and Blair. 
u McDonald Papers, Vol. VII, p. 356. 

45 p resen t state of Virginia, p. 25, Hugh Jones, A. M. 



THE SITE OP OLD " JAMES TOWNE/ 



97 



house until the capitol was rebuilt in 1755. By 1779, the 
centre of population having moved westward, Williamsburg was 
no longer well adapted as a point for assembling the legislature. 
For the above reason principally, and also on account of its be- 
ing thought that the place was rendered unsafe by the then 
existing state of war, it was decided by an act of Assembly 
passed in the above year to transfer the seat of government to 
Eichmond, which statute went into effect in 1780. 




Anns of Captain John Smith. 



7— J. T. 



The Turf and Brick Forts. 

HE earliest fort of the settlers, called by them "James 
Forte," as previously shown, was probably situated on the 
river bank, at the upper extremity of the fourth ridge. 
From the description of "James Citty," previously 
alluded to, written by the Eev. John Clayton in 1688, 1 about 
two years after his return to England, it appears that during his 
residence at " James Citty/' from 1684 to 1686, there was in the 
town an old dismantled earth work, quadrangular in plan, " with 
something like Bastions at the four corners." In a grant to 
Henry Hartwell in 1689, 2 the western line of his tract is de- 
scribed as "passing along by ye angular points of ye trench 
which faeeth two of ye Eastern Bastions of an old ruined turf 
fort." The above quotations undoubtedly refer to the same 
fort. 

The Hartwell tract being accurately located, the approximate 
position of the fort was ascertained. According to Mr. Clay- 
ton's letter, the fort was dismantled before 1684. No mark or 
vestige of it remains above ground. There is apparently no in- 
formation available as to when it was constructed. As the land 
on which it was situated was patented to Captain Ealph Hamor 
in 1624, the time of its construction must have been subsequent 
to that year, or to that of his death, 1626, on the 11th of Octo- 
ber of which year his will was probated and his widow, Eliza- 
beth, qualified as administratrix. 8 

It is possible that the turf fort was the one referred to by 
Beverley, as follows : " The news of this plot (the Birkenhead 
conspiracy in September, 1663), being transmitted to King 
Charles the second, his Majesty sent his royal commands to 
build a fort at James town, for security of the governor, and to 

1 Force's Historical Tracts, Vol. III. 
3 Va. Land Pat. Records, Book VII, p. 701. 
3 Transcripts Robinson MSS., p. 159. 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 99 

be a curb upon all such traitorous attempts for the future. 
But the country, thinking all danger over, only raised a battery 
of some small pieces of cannon." * 

In the account of the town by Mr. Eichard Eandolph in 

1837 B it is stated in substance that some of the walls and mounds 
of the ancient fort still remained, that a few hundred yards to 
the right of the fort stood the building reputed to have been a 
powder magazine, and that a part of the fort had been destroyed 
by the encroachments of the river. 

It appears from what follows that the fort referred to by Ran- 
dolph was the last erected at " James Citty." The site of the 
former " magazine " is shown on the map. 

It is assumed that, in making his observations, Mr. Eandolph 
faced the river, the fort being down stream from, or below the 
magazine. If the distance between the two structures had been 
several hundred yards, as given by him, the site of the fort 
would now be in the deep water opposite the Confederate fort of 
1861. This would involve an extensive change of position of 
the deep channel since 1837, which palpably would be impossi- 
ble, for, as has been pointed out, the channel of James Eiver at 
Jamestown Island is very stable, and no marked changes of its 
position or depth occur, even in centuries. It is, therefore, be- 
lieved that Mr. Eandolph meant feet, and not yards, or it is 
possible that the word yards is a typographic error. 

The distance between the shore lines of 1837 and 1891, near 
the uppermost of the four jetties marked " a " on map, three 
hundred and twenty feet below the reputed magazine, is found 
approximately by using the average annual rates of abrasion of 
two and four feet, previously determined, to have been one hun- 
dred and ninety feet. The shore of 1891 was accurately located 
in that year. In 1896 it was cut back about seventy feet at the 
uppermost jetty to bring it to a fair line for receiving protec- 
tion work. Since 1896 the recession of the bank has been very 

'History of the Present State of Virginia, p. 56. 

5 Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. Ill, pp. 303, 304. 

LOFa 



100 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

slight at the locality referred, to. When viewed by Mr. Ean- 
dolph, therefore, the shore was about two hundred and sixty 
feet further west than at present, and some of the mounds of 
the fort were then standing. At from two hundred to three 
hundred and fifty feet off shore, where, according to the above 
deductions, the fort would have stood, are what appear to be 
masses of masonry submerged from one and one-half to two and 
one-half feet below low water. The debris lies in what would 
be the extension of the " little vale " between the third and 
fourth ridges, from three hundred and fifty to four hundred 
and fifty feet to the left of the reputed magazine, with the 
observer facing the river, thus agreeing fairly well with Mr. 
Bandolph's estimate of distance, amended as above suggested. 

From Mr. Clayton's description of " James Citty," before re- 
ferred to, it is learned that the brick fort was crescent-shaped, 
that a brick wall formed a part of it, probably one of its faces to 
retain encompassing earthworks, or mounds, as Mr. Eandolph 
styles them, and that it was situated at the beginning of the 
swamp, above the town, where the channel was very near the 
shore. 

According to Mr. Clayton also, on account of being in a vale 
and having its guns pointed down stream, its shot intended for 
an enemy's fleet would have lodged in the bank below, which was 
at a higher elevation than the fort, and from ten to forty 
yards distant. The bank which would have received the shot 
from the fort's guns was the former head of the fourth ridge, 
which formed the eastern boundary of the " little vale." 

In September, 1667, an act of Assembly was passed 8 for 
building five forts, one of which was to be at "James Citty." 
Its walls were to be of brick, ten feet high, and the part facing 
the river ten feet thick. The fort, according to the above act, 
was to have an armament of eight great guns; according to 
another authority, it was to mount fourteen guns. 7 The above 

e Hening's Statutes, Vol. II, pp. 255-257. 
7 McDonald Papers, Vol. V. p. 4. 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 101 

act undoubtedly refers to the brick fort. The contractors for 
building the fort were Major Theophilus Hone, Colonel William 
Drummond, and Colonel Matthew Page. The funds for its con- 
struction do not appear to have been raised as late as September, 
1672. 8 Between 1672 and 1676 a peremptory order was issued 
by the court requiring the surviving contractors for the fort, 
Hone and Drummond, to forthwith complete its construction, 
and providing that no further payment should be made until 
the work was completed. 9 

As has been shown, the channel opposite the site of the for- 
mer turf fort is about twice as far from the shore as it is three 
hundred yards above the tower ruin, or about where the brick 
fort stood. This coincides with Mr. Clayton's statement that 
opposite the turf fort the channel was nearer the middle of 
the river than off the brick fort. 10 

From what has preceded it is evident that the fort referred to 
by Mr. Randolph was the brick fort described by Mr. Clayton, 
that it was situated in the extension of the depression between 
the third and fourth ridges, which he refers to as " a little vale/' 
and which in fact is a minor branch of Pitch and Tarr Swamp," 
and that the masonry debris now lying under water off the 
uppermost of the four jetties marked "a" on chart are most 
probably parts of its wall, which it was proposed to make ten 
feet high and ten feet thick. 

[From Mr. Clayton's allusion to the relative positions of the 
brick and turf forts, with reference to that of the town, " but it 
is the same as if a Port were built at Chelsea to secure London 
from being taken by shipping," and " There was indeed an old 
Fort of Earth in "the town," it is apparent that in 1684 and 
1686 the town, or at least the greater part of it, was below the 
brick fort. This agrees with available information, for at that 
time the only buildings known to have been standing on the 
third ridge were the "Country House" and the state house. 

8 Hening , s Statutes, Vol. II, pp. 293, 294. 

8 Robinson's Transcripts, General Court Records, 1670-1676, p. 149, 

10 Force's Historical Tracts, Vol. III. 



102 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE. 

It is probable that the building reputed to have been a maga- 
zine was also standing and possibly one or two dwelling houses. 
There are no signs of house foundations on the ridges above the 
third ridge. 

There appears to be no picture extant of Jamestown. In a 
little Dutch booklet styled the " Scheeps-togt" (ship's log), by- 
Anthony Chester, Captain of the "Margaret and John," pub- 
lished in Holland in 1707, is an engraving of the massacre of 
1622. In the clouds of the picture, mirage like, are the dim 
outlines of a town within a stockade. This cloud picture has 
been assumed by two writers to represent Jamestown in 1620 
and 1622, although there is not a word in the text of the 
" Scheeps-togt " to warrant such an assumption. The picture 
is most probably an invention of a Dutch draftsman, made 
nearly a century after Chester wrote his log (1622), and who, 
most probably, had never been in Virginia. 



fAMES Citty," in its best days, was little more than a 
straggling hamlet, holding besides a church and a few 
unostentatious public buildings, hardly ever more than 
a score of dwellings, and a larger permanent population 
than one hundred souls. It was the foreshore on which tho 
inrolling waves of immigration, on their way up the " Greate 
Kiver," first broke. Its life, a feverish one, whose term was 
less than a century, terminated two centuries ago. Attempts 
to encourage the growth of the town by offering land bounties to 
those who should erect brick dwellings, as well as enactments and 
re-enactments making it the sole port of entry for the colony, 
failed signally to raise it to a place of any proportions, and after 
being twice lifted from its ashes, it succumbed under a third 
conflagration and was left prone. The town must have been 
held in disfavor, and avoided as a place of residence by many of 
the early colonists, on account of a well-earned reputation of 
being " insalubritious " in summer. The period of its life was 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE.' 



103 



not propitious for town building, as the principal efforts of the 
colonists were then devoted to agriculture, particularly tobacco 
raising. 

Few relics of the old town mark its site, but its name Is 
imperishable. Its requiem is unceasing sung in the rhythmic 
surgings of the " King's River." 




Historical Summary of the Jamestown Period. 

?HE form of local government with which "the first col- 
ony," the Virginia colony, was initiated, consisted of a 
president and a Council of six persons. The president 
was elected annually by the Council out of its number. 
The Council also filled vacancies in its own body by elections. 
The methods of procedure in this body, in some respects, re- 
sembled those of a military court. 

At the end of three years, the results accomplished in Vir- 
ginia being unsatisfactory to the London Company, changes 
were made in its form of local government by abolishing the 
office of president and appointing instead as governor a man of 
high social order, and introducing a code of severe military 
laws. The new system was introduced on the arrival in Vir- 
ginia of Sir Thomas Gates, Knight, with the title of lieutenant- 
governor. Of Gates and his code of laws more will be said 
anon. 

Of the first Council, Captain Edwin Maria Wingfield, the 
first president, was deposed September 10, 1607, and sent home, 
Captain Bartholomew Gosnold, a famous navigator, " The first 
mover of this plantation," died within a few months after reach- 
ing Jamestown, Captain John Eatcliffe was killed by the Indians 
about three years later, Captain George Kendall was summarily 
executed in December, 1607, on account of his connection with 
some vaguely described " mutiny," Captain Christopher Newport 
died in the far East in 1617, and Captain John Smith lived to 
write the most complete account that we have of affairs in the 
early days of " Old Virginia." The remaining confrere of 
Smith in the first Council was Captain John Martin. At the 
abandonment of Jamestown by Gates in 1610, Martin alone 
opposed this measure. He was the founder of the Brandon 
estate on James Biver. This grant carried privileges similar to 
those of a lord of the manor. Being deprived of these privileges 

[104] 




J ' Qfttfa. 

CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 105 

by the first legislature in 1619, Martin became an aggressive 
partisan of the Smythe faction of the London Company, here- 
inafter referred to. 

The three years under the presidents constituted a most 
eventful part of the Jamestown period. In its beginning, Cap- 
tain John Smith, being unjustly deprived of his seat in the 
Council, was restored through the efforts of Eev. Eobert Hunt, 
and within sixteen months was elected to the presidency, 
while those who had connived at his downfall were abased and 
returned to England. 

Notwithstanding the fatal illness of members of the party 
during the first summer, by which two-thirds of its number lost 
their lives within three months, much was accomplished in 
exploring the streams of the adjacent country. Before Newport 
returned to England after arriving with the advance guard of 
the settlers, he explored James Eiver to the " Falls," where 
Eichmond now stands, in quest of the " Southern Sea," or of 
information concerning it. 

As an explorer, Captain John Smith was nearly always the 
leader, and it was while absent on one of his expeditions, under 
the presidency of Eatcliffe, that Captain Kendall of the Council 
was implicated in the conspiracy, before alluded to. 

About this time discoveries and adventures crowded rapidly 
on one another. Captain Smith explored the Chickahominy to 
its head waters, where he was captured by the Pamunkey 
Indians in the " slashes " of Hanover County, not far from 
Eichmond. He was rescued from death by Pocahontas, only to 
be condemned by his own people immediately after his return 
to Jamestown, by a singular form of reprisal, to atone for the 
deaths of three of his party on the Chickahominy expedition. 
From this latter fate he was rescued by the timely arrival of 
Captain Newport from England with the " first supply," or 
reinforcement (January 4, 1608). 

Next followed Newport's visit to Wahunsunacoek, the Pow- 
hatan, at Werowocomico on the York Eiver, then called the 
Pamunkey; then the burning of the shelter huts of the settlers 



106 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

in the stockade during the dead of winter. Following this 
disaster Newport's ship was loaded for a return voyage with clay 
containing mica or pyrites, under the delusion that it was gold 
ore. Newport and his supposed precious cargo of gold being 
dispatched,. Smith undertook the work that made him most 
famous, viz., the exploration of Chesapeake Bay, which he com- 
pleted in about three months. Smith's map of Virginia, based 
on this reconnoissance made in an open boat, often exposed to 
tempestuous seas, and with the crudest of instruments, was the 
authority for over a century. On returning from this expe- 
dition, Smith found Katclirfe under arrest, on account of plan- 
ning a desertion with the pinnace. Smith then succeeded to 
the presidency (September 10, 1608), and immediately after, 
Newport arrived with another reinforcement, called the second 
supply. 

Shortly after Newport's arrival, the Powhatan was invited to 
Jamestown to be crowned, and receive as presents certain 
articles of apparel and household furniture. The old savage 
was not sufficiently complaisant to come, but demanded that the 
presents be brought to him. This was accordingly done, and the 
ludicrous farce of a forced coronation in an Indian tepee was 
enacted, the chief presenting Newport with his skin mantle and 
old shoes in return for the presents received by him. The 
mantle is said to be in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, 
England. 

After the coronation, Newport made his second trip up the 
James as far as the Monacan Country, probably twenty miles 
above Eichmond, carrying a boat in sections, all in readiness to 
sail on the waters of the " South Sea," or at least on a stream 
flowing towards it, if either should be discovered. In the 
second reinforcement were the first two women that came to 
Virginia, viz., " Mistress Forest," wife of one of the gentlemen 
of the party, and her maid, Anne Buras, who soon after married 
John Laydon, a member of the first, or original party of settlers. 
' Now ensued a period of great scarcity of provisions, and to 
make matters worse, an addition was made to the population by 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE. 



107 



the arrival of the third supply (August, 1609), also scantily 
provided in the ahove respect. The newcomers were without their 
leader, Sir Thomas Gates, Lord La Warr's lieutenant, who had 
been shipwrecked in the Bermudas, and there was, for a while, 
as a result of his absence, much disputing as to who should be 
the temporary head of the colony. Some sort of order, however, 
was finally restored, and Smith continued, under the silent 
protest of the minority, to serve out his term as president. 
Among the last arrivals were Archer, Eatcliffe and Martin, who, 
while formerly living at Jamestown, had shown great animosity 
towards Smith. This triumvirate, in all probability, was in- 
strumental in having Smith sent back to England in disgrace, 
if, indeed, this was really done, as a few writers seem to believe. 

About the close of Captain Smith's presidency, Captain West, 
Lord La Warr's brother, who had come in the " second supply," 
went to the neighborhood of Eichmond to establish a post, but 
became involved in a quarrel with the Indians, and the enter- 
prise had to be abandoned. While returning from an inspection 
of this post, Captain Smith was injured by an accidental ex- 
plosion of gunpowder, and lying thus wounded at Jamestown, a 
plot was concocted to assassinate him. This attempt failed, 
through the misgivings of the elected assassin. From all 
accounts, Smith's enemies appear to have made his life a burden, 
on account of which, and of his burns from the explosion, he re- 
turned to England. It is stated that charges were preferred 
against him. This appears very doubtful, for there is no record 
of his ever being brought to trial. 

Smith's departure from Virginia (October 5, 1609), was 
followed by such serious mismanagement by Captain Percy, who 
was chosen to conduct the government, that within eight months, 
" The Starving Time," about 430 out of about 490 persons suc- 
cumbed to famine and disease. At this juncture Gates, who 
had been cast away on the Bermudas, arrived with a slenderly 
provided party (May 20, 1610). Gates introduced the both 
famous and infamous laws, before mentioned, for the govern- 
ment of the colonists. These laws are plaintively described in a 



108 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

petition drawn up by the so-called " ancient planters/' modernly 
styled old citizens, as being "written in blood." Some of the 
offences which carried the death penalty were speaking im- 
piously of the Trinity, derisively of Holy Writ and calumniating 
the government officials. For minor offences they prescribed 
milder penalties, such as branding, whipping and thrusting a 
bodkin through the offender's tongue. There is record of the 
last named being inflicted on a man for slandering Ealph 
Hamor, secretary of state. The laws were to be read by minis- 
ters to their congregations every Sunday afternoon, and worse 
still, they provided for repeating a prayer by the " Captain of 
the watch," both morning and evening, containing fifty per 
cent, more words than all the prayers and chants of the morning 
service in the Book of Common Prayer. 

About two weeks after Gates' arrival he yielded to the plead- 
ings of the settlers by abandoning Jamestown, being convinced 
that all would starve unless this were done (June 7, 1610). 
The ill and half -starved wretches embarked in their little ships 
and sailed down the river on their way home. About this time 
Sir Thomas West, the third Lord La Warr, the first governor of 
Virginia, under the London Company, arrived at Point Comfort 
and ordered the departing settlers to return, and by his words 
and example, for a time, inspired the people with new courage. 
Within a year La Warr was forced by ill health to leave Vir- 
ginia for England (March 28, 1611). 

La Warr's successor, after a short term by Captain Percy, was 
Sir Thomas Dale, a heartless martinet, full of venom and vigor, 
who, about the time of La Warr's departure, arrived with 
"three tall ships" and three hundred men (May 19, 1611). 
Dale soon established settlements at Henrico, now Dutch Gap, 
and at Bermuda Hundred. He remained in the colony for 
about six years, and established a reputation of a high order, 
both for harshness and good management. John Smith, in a 
rather docile way, censures Dale's breaking on the wheel and 
racking his old and faithful sergeant, Jeffrey Abbott. 

Captain Samuel Argall, than whom a more accomplished 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 109 

scamp perhaps never lived, was Dale's lieutenant, and com- 
manded the expeditions sent from Jamestown against the 
French settlements in Nova Scotia, where he burned Port Eoyal, 
settled two years before Virginia, and brought Father Biard, a 
Jesuit, to Jamestown (1613). Dale would have hanged this 
priest, who was an eminently good man, had it not been that 
Argall, who was deeply indebted to him, interfered. With 
Father Biard and his companions as prisoners at Jamestown 
were two Spanish officers and a traitorous Englishman in the 
service of Spain, Lymbrye by name. The three last named 
prisoners were captured while reconnoitering ashore at Point 
Comfort. The prison at Jamestown during Dale's administra- 
tion appears to have been a vessel. Pocahontas was also at 
Jamestown at this time, as a quasi prisoner, but not in close 
confinement. After Captain Smith's departure she was resid- 
ing with Japazaws, Chief of the Potomacs, and his wife, by 
whom she was betrayed into Argall's hands for the price of a 
copper kettle. 

Father Biard was liberated after about nine months, and 
Pocahontas was married shortly after to Eolfe. Of the two 
Spaniards, one died while a prisoner, and the other, Don Diego 
de Molina, a nobleman, after three years imprisonment, was 
carried by Dale to England when the latter left Virginia (May, 
1616). Pocahontas, Eolfe and Lymbrye were also passengers 
with Dale, who, when times were dull at sea, hanged the last 
named from the yard arm. Dale's ship was named the Treas- 
urer, commanded by Captain Argall, and both ship and com- 
mander attained great notoriety as pirates. 

Captain George Yeardley succeeded Sir Thomas Dale as 
deputy governor, referred to by Bancroft as " mild and ineffi- 
cient." During his term (May, 1616-May, 1617), Yeardley 
attacked the Chickahominy Indians on account of their refusing 
to furnish him with corn, according to a previous understanding 
with Dale, and also on account of their assuming a threatening 
attitude when Yeardley went to collect the corn from them. 
According to some accounts, Yeardley's above action was un- 



110 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

justifiable, and it was stated by those who were unfriendly to 
him to have been a cause of the massacre of the colonists which 
occurred six years later. 

In March, 1617, Pocahontas died at Gravesend in England, 
and Eolfe returned to Virginia, leaving his son Thomas with 
Sir Lewis Stukeley at Plymouth. After serving as governor for 
about a year, Captain Yeardley was relieved by Captain Samuel 
Argall as deputy governor to Lord La Warr. Argall left the 
colony clandestinely after about two years of misrule, and in 
less than a fortnight Yeardley, recently knighted, returned with 
the title of Governor and Captain General, as successor to Lord 
La Warr, who had died in 1618, while on his way to Virginia. 
Captain Nathaniel Powell was deputy governor during the ten 
days interval between the departure of Argall and the arrival of 
Yeardley. 

The affairs of the Virginia colony had now been under the 
direction of Sir Thomas Smythe, treasurer or manager of the 
London Company, for about twelve years, during the greater 
part of which time more or less dissatisfaction was expressed with 
the management, on account of unremunerative results. Sir 
Thomas was a wealthy merchant, and took a leading part in most 
of the great enterprises of the day for extending commerce into 
distant lands. He was one of the founders of the scheme for 
discovering the Northwest Passage. In consequence of Argall's 
maladministration, despotic methods and dishonest acts while 
in the above office, Sir Thomas Smythe was severely censured by 
Sir Edwin Sandys and Sir Henry Wriothesley, Earl of South- 
ampton, leaders of one of the factions into which the Company 
had become divided on account of petty jealousies and differences 
of opinion as to its policies. 

Both Sandys and "Wriothesley were men of the highest char- 
acter. Sandys was one of the framers of the remonstrance 
addressed to King James on account of his treatment of his first 
Parliament. Wriothesley was a courageous man, who seldom 
hesitated to boldly assert his convictions. He was an intimate 






THOMAS LaWARR, Third Baron Delaware. 
First Governor of Virginia, under the London Company 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." Ill 

of Sandys, who, it is stated, converted him to the reformed 
faith. 

Sandys was the leader of the "independent party" in Par- 
liament, which opposed the Eoyal prerogative against "the 
rights of the Parliament and the liberty of the subject," and on 
account of his activity and zeal, in advocating this principle in 
Parliament, was, with other members, imprisoned. Thus did 
King James sow the wind of which Prince Charles was to reap 
the whirlwind. 

At an election for treasurer of the Company held in April, 
1619, Sir Thomas Smythe refused re-election, and the candi- 
dates placed in nomination by his faction, that of the merchants, 
were defeated by Sir Edwin Sandys, an advocate of a popular 
form of government in Virginia. The election of Sandys 
greatly angered the king, who recognized in it the influence in 
the London Company of those who in Parliament were opposed 
to his policies. At the election for treasurer in the following 
year the king forbade the nomination of Sandys, and proposed 
for the office the names of Smythe and three of his adherents. 
The company resented this invasion of its charter rights by 
electing by vociferous acclamation, to the office of treasurer, Sir 
Henry Wriothesley, " The friend of Shakespeare." On 
account of Wriothesley's election the king became still more in- 
censed against the Company, and at once set about to accom- 
plish its downfall. Wriothesley was re-elected treasurer during 
the succeeding four years of the Company's existence. 

To further his plans for overthrowing the Company, the king 
called to his service Sir Samuel Argall, whom he knighted in 
June, 1622. He also summoned for the same purpose Nathaniel 
Butler, erstwhile governor of the Bermudas, who, on account of 
malfeasance in office, had fled to Virginia, where during his 
three months sojourn in 1622 he perpetrated several high- 
handed acts, among them that of stealing Dame Dale's cows. 
Dame Dale was the relict of Sir Thomas, and at that time re- 
sided in the suburbs of Jamestown. 

On Butler's return to England he published, at the instance 



112 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

of the king, " The Unmasked Face of our Colony in Virginia as 
it was in the Winter of 1622." In this paper Butler attacked 
the management of colonial affairs under Sandys and South- 
ampton, and defended the administration of Sir Thomas 
Smythe. Butler's charges were replied to in an equally quaint 
and curious document styled " The denial of Nathaniel Butler's 
the Unmasked Face/' etc. It was subscribed to by twenty-four 
persons, including Sir Francis Wyatt, Governor, the members of 
Wyatt's Council and members of the Assembly. Another paper 
of similar import to " The Unmasked Face," bearing the title of 
" The Alderman's Declaration," emanating from Alderman 
Johnson, who had been Sir Thomas Smythe's deputy while he 
was treasurer, was also answered by practically the same persons 
who had replied to Butler's screed. 

The following extracts from Stith's rendition of the answer to 
" The Alderman's Declaration " and from " The denial of 
Nathaniel Butler's ' The unmasked Face,' " furnish a pathetic 
epitome of the tragedy of the early settlement: 

From the answer to the " Alderman's Declaration :" — " That 
in those twelve years of Sir Thomas Smith's government the 
colony for the most part remained in great want and misery 
& under most severe and cruel laws, which were sent over in 
print, and that the allowance of a man in those times was only 
eight ounces of meal and half a pint of pease a day, both the one 
and the other being moldy, rotten, full of cob webs and maggots, 
loathsome to man and not fit for beasts which forced many to fly 
to the savage Enemy in relief who being again taken were put to 
sundry kinds of death by hanging, shooting, breaking upon the 
wheel and the like. That others were forced by famine to filch 
for their bellies of whom one for stealing three pints of oatmeal 
had a bodkin thrust thro his tongue and was chained to a tree 
till he starved. That if a man thro' sickness had not been able 
to work he had no allowance at all and so perished. That many 
through these extremities dug holes in the Earth and there hid 
themselves till they famished. * * That the scarcity sometimes 
was so lamentable that they were constrained to eat dogs, cats, 



THE SITE OE OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 113 

rats, snakes, toadstools, horse-hides, and what not. That one 
man out of the misery he endured killed his wife and powdered 
her up to eat for which he was burnt, that many others fed upon 
the corpses of dead men and that one who through custom had 
got an insatiable appetite for that food could not be restrained 
till he was executed for it and that indeed so miserable was their 
state that the happiest day many ever hoped to see was when 
the Indians killed a mare, the people wishing as she was boiling 
that Sir Thomas Smith was on her back in the kettle." 

From the " denial " to Nathaniel Butler's " The unmasked 
Face :" " His computation of 10,000 souls f alleth short of 4,000 
& those were in great part wasted by the more than Egyptian 
slavery and Scythian cruelty which was exercised on us your 
poore and miserable subjects by Laws written in blood and execu- 
ted with all kinds of Tyranny in the time of Sir Thomas Smith's 
government, whereof we send your Majesty the true and Tragical 
Eelation." 

It is to be inferred from these acrimonious writings that the 
material condition of the settlers could not have been much 
worse under one administration than the other; also that under 
the Smythe regime this condition resulted, in a large measure, 
from perfunctoriness, indifference and bad management, while 
under Sandys and Southampton the last named was the sole cause. 

It is generally understood that on account of the assistance 
rendered by Butler in furthering the king's efforts to destroy 
the Company, the charges of mal-administration against him 
were suppressed. 

In the spring of 1623 a formal complaint was lodged with 
the Privy Council and Lord Treasurer against the Company. 
This was ably answered and the charges refuted by Sandys, 
Cavendish and Ferrar, who, for their pains, were placed under 
duress. The king then appointed a commission to investigate 
affairs in Virginia, including Sir Samuel Argall, Captain John 
Harvey, John Pory, Abraham Peirsey and Samuel Matthews. 
The commissioners found in the local Virginia government 
warm supporters of the Sandys and Southampton administra- 

8— J. T. 



114 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE. 

"tions. In the summer of 1623 the attorney general rendered an 
opinion advising that the government of Virginia be transferred 
to the king. The company was called on to surrender its char- 
ter. This order Sandys and his associates declined to obey. 
A petition from the Company to Parliament to consider the 
rights of the Company was met by the king's order to forbear, 
and the petition was tabled. Quo warranto proceedings fol- 
lowed. In presenting the case for the Crown the attorney 
general held that the power conferred on the Company by the 
charter in respect to immigration was too great, and that by its 
exercise the depopulating of Great Britain might result, by all 
of its people being transferred to America. This argument was 
considered irrefutable by the lord chief justice, and on June 16, 
1624, the Company's charter was annulled. 

An attempt was made to re-establish the Company about 
fourteen years later, but King Charles assured the remonstrating 
colonists that this would not be done. 

Yeardley was appointed governor towards the close of the 
Smythe regime, but owed his appointment to the influence of the 
Sandys faction. He appears to have been especially selected to 
succeed La Warr on account of his aptitude for carrying out the 
Sandys policy of a popular form of government. He served for 
upwards of two years (April 19, 1619-JSTovember 18, 1621). 
His term was made famous by three incidents, viz., the con- 
vening of the first legislative body in America (July 30, 1619), 
the arrivals of young women sent to Virginia to become wives of 
the settlers, and the arrival of the first African slaves (August, 
1619). The Assembly met at this time in the little frame 
church fifty feet by twenty feet in plan, built in Argall's term, 
and previously referred to, and the pomp and ceremony with 
which the meetings were conducted must have contrasted 
strangely with the simplicity and rudeness of this little edifice. 

Sir Francis Wyatt, Knight, succeeded Yeardley. He was 
a man of education, but apparently not a soldier. About this 
time (May 28, 1621) the opinion was expressed by a Virginia 
divine, Parson Stockton, that " till their [the Indian's] Priests 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 115 

and Ancients have their throats cut, there is no hope to bring 
them to conversion." This heroic treatment, while only sug- 
gested by the clergyman, in despair of bettering the spiritual 
condition of the savages, was adopted by the latter in the 
massacre on March 22 (Good Friday), 1622, of the unsuspecting 
and confiding settlers. 

Wyatt remained in Virginia as governor for about six years, 
and was joined by Lady Wyatt in the second year of his term, 
or about a year after the first massacre. 

Notwithstanding the improved condition of the colonists, com- 
pared with that previously existing, Lady Wyatt, writing to her 
sister in England, states that the ship in which she crossed the 
Atlantic was " so pestered with people and goods, so full of in- 
fection, that after a while they saw little but throwing folks 
overboard." On land she found little to encourage her, and 
would be undone unless her sister or mother could help her. 
Butter, bacon, cheese and malt were especially needed. 

In the year of the massacre and that following, there was a 
great influx of immigrants, inadequately provided with sub- 
sistence stores. On account of the hostility of the Indians and 
the abandoning of farms after the massacre, very little maize 
was planted and harvested. George Sandys, treasurer, uncle of 
Lady Wyatt, in writing home states that " the living could hardly 
bury the dead;" also that the beer furnished by a contractor 
named Dupper had " poisoned most of the passengers on ship- 
board, and had spread the infection all over the colony;" evi- 
dently referring to an epidemic of some kind unstated, possibly 
cholera. 

During Wyatt's first term occurred one of the most important 
events in the colony's history, viz., the formal granting of a 
constitution providing for a civil form of government, of which 
the convening of the legislature about two years before by 
Yeardley was the forerunner. 

On the retiring of Sir Francis Wyatt from office, Sir George 
Yeardley began his second term as governor (May, 1626), which, 
was terminated in about six months by his death on Novem- 



116 THE SITE OE OLD " JAMES TOWNE. 

ber 27, 1627. His father was a merchant tailor of London. 
Sir George served with distinction against the Spaniards, in the 
Netherlands, and came to Virginia seventeen years before his 
death as captain of Lieutenant Governor Gates' company. He 
owned an estate at Flowerdew 1 Hundred on James Eiver, and 
another in Accomac County on the " Eastern Shore." He is 
criticised by one writer for making a great parade in London 
after he was knighted, and the poet George Sandys, in a letter to 
England, relates that he was " too much taken up with his own 
affairs." With his name are associated the most pleasing memo- 
ries of " James Towne." 

According to Yeardley's second commission, Captain John 
Harvey was to succeed him in event of his death, and Captain 
Francis West, brother of Lord La Warr, was named as successor 
to Harvey. The latter being in the naval service under Buck- 
ingham, West was duly installed in the office, which he filled for 
about sixteen months. At this time the immigration to Virginia 
was very large. 

Dr. John Pott was elected by the Council to act as governor on 
March 5, 1629, during Captain West's absence in England, and 
held the position till the arrival of the new governor and captain- 
general, Sir John Harvey (March 24, 1630). The hypercritical 
George Sandys, the poet, refers to Dr. Pott, in one of his letters 
from Jamestown, as " a pitiful councillor," and in another as 
" a cipher." 

A notable act of the Assembly approved by Governor Pott 
provided for attacking the Indians at intervals of four months, 
and another restricted the quantity of tobacco to be planted by 
each person. 

Several months after Dr. Pott was relieved by Sir John Har- 
vey he was convicted of appropriating other people's cattle, but 
sentence was withheld till the matter could be submitted to the 
king. In the meanwhile, the members of the Council became 

1 Professor Arber suggests that the intended name was Florida 
Hundred. 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 117 

the ex-governor's bondsmen, and Mrs Pott hurried across the 
Atlantic and personally appealed to King Charles I, who finding 
the evidence insufficient, granted the pardon. 

Governor Harvey was one of the commissioners sent by King 
James I to Virginia, prior to the annulling of the* London Com- 
pany's charter in 1623, to report on the condition of the colony. 
He at that time patented a tract of land on the south bank of the 
James River, about five-eighths mile below the present wharf 
(see map). While Sir John was governor, he lived, according 
to some accounts, in considerable style. A former fellow sea 
captain named De Vries tells of Harvey's meeting him at the 
wharf with an escort of halberdiers and musqueteers and of 
entertaining him right royally at his Jamestown home. 

Sir John incurred the dislike of his Council by his friendly 
attitude towards the forming of Lord Baltimore's colony of 
Maryland out oil northern Virginia. Dislike was ripened into 
open hostility by the governor's contumacious conduct, and cul- 
minated in open revolt when he intercepted the councillors' 
letters to the king. He was finally deposed and sent back to 
England (April 28, 1635). King Charles disapproved of the 
Council's course in deposing Harvey, and within two years sent 
him back' to Virginia to resume the office of governor. He re- 
lieved Captain John West January 18, 1637, who had been 
elected acting governor by the Council. 

About the time of Harvey's deposal occurred the famous little 
battle between citizens of Virginia and Maryland, whose diminu- 
tive navies were respectively commanded by Eatcliff Warner and 
Councillor Thomas Cornwallis. The question at issue was, to 
which of the above colonies Kent Island belonged. 

The immigration to Virginia was larger during Harvey's 
administration than ever before. Nearly all of these immi- 
grants were indentured servants. The building of brick houses 
was begun, and the first possessor of one, Richard Kemp, wrote 
about this time that there was " Scarce any but hath his garden 
and orchard." Kemp's house, according to my investigations, 
was slightly east of the dwelling house built after the War 



118 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

between the States on the site of the former Arnbler-Jaquelin 
mansion, burned during that war. ~Ro more striking proof 
could be afforded of the simple life of the Jamestonians of that 
time, a full generation after the first settlement was made, than 
the pride which they displayed over the acquiring of the first 
brick house, only sixteen by twenty-four feet. 

The establishment of the first free institution of learning in 
the New World by the bequest of Benjamin Symms in 1635, 
antedated the endowment by John Harvard of the university 
that bears his name. Symms' school was situated in Elizabeth 
City Parish, Virginia, not far from Point Comfort. 

This was not the first effort made in Virginia in behalf of 
education. Fifteen years earlier fifteen hundred pounds ster- 
ling had been raised by" the English bishops at the instance of 
King James the First for erecting a college for educating the 
Indians, and a single contribution of five hundred and fifty 
pounds sterling was made for the same purpose in 1622. The 
scheme of educating the Indians seems to have been abandoned 
after the massacre of 1622. 

At the expiration of Harvey's second term (November, 1639), 
he was reduced almost to beggary by judgments obtained against 
him by those whom he had defrauded during his administrations. 

Sir Francis Wyatt succeeded Harvey, and held the office of 
governor for one and one-half years (February, 1642). 

Eichard Kemp was secretary of state under Sir Francis Wyatt, 
and was accused of secretly leaving Virginia and carrying away 
the charter and records of the colony. He subsequently returned 
and filled his former office under the successor of Wyatt, Sir 
William Berkeley. 

In Bruton Parish Churchyard near the door of the north 
transept of the church is a tomb placed by Philip Ludwell, 
bearing an epitaph to his uncle, Thomas Ludwell, Sir Thomas 
Lunsford, Knight, and Eichard Kemp, the two last named being 
buried elsewhere in the churchyard. 

The annals of Jamestown of the time of Sir William Berke- 
ley's administrations are full of interest. Sir William is prob- 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 119 

ably oftener referred to than any other colonial governor. He 
took his degree at Oxford at the age of nineteen, and subse- 
quently traveled extensively on the continent. He was a versa- 
tile man, and among his achievements wrote a play, " The Lost 
Lady," which Pepys notes in his diary having seen performed in 
London. "When he came to Virginia in 1642, he displayed 
great zeal in performing his duties, and manifested a deep in- 
terest in the welfare of the people and extreme loyalty to the 
sovereign. In his later years he was irascible, covetous and 
despotic. 

Sir William was a perfervid Eoyalist, and a man of great 
ambitions. He was a staunch supporter of the State Church and 
enforced the laws excluding those of other sects from Virginia. 
His failure to amass great wealth and attain advancement after 
spending thirty-four years in Virginia, coupled with poor health, 
probably accounts, in a large measure, for the petulant and 
overbearing disposition for which he was noted in the closing 
years of a career which began so auspiciously, and terminated so 
ignominiously. 

Sir William married about his sixtieth year, in 1670, Frances 
Culpeper, the widow of ex-Governor Stephens, of North Caro- 
lina, and left no descendants. 

Sir William served two terms as governor of Virginia, the 
first of about ten (February, 1642- April 30, 1652), the second 
of about seventeen years (March 13, 1660-April 27, 1677). 
The second Indian massacre, led, as was the first, by Opechan- 
canough, brother and successor to the Sachem Wahunsunacock, 
commonly known as Powhatan, occurred (April 17, 1644) on 
" Holy Thursday," near the end of the second year of Governor 
Berkeley's first term. In it about three hundred of the settlers 
were muidered. 

About this time Sir William visited England for consultation 
with the Royal government. The trip was made necessary by 
the outbreak of the Revolution. Shortly after his return to 
Virginia in June, 1645, he attacked Opechancanough's force 



120 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

and captured the old blind chief, who, while confined at James- 
town, was treacherously murdered by his jailers. 

Eichard Kemp, president of the Council, acted as governor 
during Sir William's absence of about one year. Under Kemp's 
administration laws were passed by the Assembly intended to 
diminish the consumption of spiritous liquors by imposing a 
heavy tax on their sale. 

During Sir William's first term the colony prospered, and its 
population increased. While the Eevolution in England was in 
progress, notwithstanding a division of sentiment in the colony 
as to the burning issue of the times, Cromwell versus Eoyalty, 
matters proceeded harmoniously. Among Cromwell's adherents 
in Virginia were several prominent persons, including Captain 
Stegge, Eichard Bennett, William Claiborne and Samuel 
Matthews. 

When Sir Wiliam Berkeley was relieved of office under the 
Commonwealth, Eichard Bennett was elected his successor by 
the Grand Assembly. Bennett served for about three years 
(April 30, 1653-March 31, 1655). He was a Puritan elder, 
and on account of his religious views had been obliged to leave 
Virginia during Berkeley's first term (1648). From Virginia 
he went to Maryland, thence to England. In September, 1651, 
he was appointed a member of the commission nominated by 
Parliament to receive the surrender of the colonies, of which the 
other members were William Claiborne, Edmund Curtis, Eobert 
Dennis and Thomas Stegge. 

Governor Bennett was succeeded by Edward Digges, who 
served about three years (March 31, 1655-March 13, 1658). 
An important event of his term was the defeat of the colonial 
forces and their Indian allies, the Pamunkeys, under their chief 
Tottopottomoy, under the command of Colonel Edward Hill, at 
Bloody Eun, near Eichmond, Va., by the Eichicrechian Indians. 

Governor Digges' successor was Captain Samuel Matthews 
{March 13, 1658- January, 1660). Captain Matthews was one 
of the councillors who, as before mentioned, " thrust out of his 
government " Sir John Harvey. 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 121 

During the session of the Assembly in which Matthews was 
elected governor, a resolution was adopted to exclude the gover- 
nor and Council from the sessions of the House of Burgesses. 
The governor unsuccessfully opposed the measure. 

The policy of Cromwell towards Virginia was far more 
pacific and liberal than that under Eoyal rule, either before or 
after the interregnum. In consequence, the country duly pros- 
pered under the Commonwealth. The three Eoundhead gov- 
ernors, Bennett, Digges and Matthews, were excellent and worthy 
men. 

Under the terms of surrender to the Parliamentary Commis- 
sioners, Virginia was to enjoy all of her ancient privileges, and 
be free from all taxes and customs except such as were imposed 
by its own legislature. 

On the death of " worthy Captain Matthews," the last Eound- 
head governor, about six weeks before the Eestoration, Sir Wil- 
liam Berkeley was elected by the Assembly to his second term. 
Nbw the ingratitude and selfishness of the Stuarts was made 
conspicuous by the conduct of Charles the Second towards Vir- 
ginia, for instead of being at least as considerate as Cromwell, 
he rewarded his ever faithful subjects by imposing heavier taxes 
on them than they had ever before experienced. 

The oppressive taxes were carried by the Navigation Act, 
passed by the Eump Parliament in 1653. By this act, as 
amended under King Charles II, all trade by the colonists was 
to be carried on exclusively with British subjects in England, in 
English or colonial built vessels, commanded by English officers, 
and manned by a crew of which at least 75 per cent, were to be 
Englishmen. 

The penalties for infractions of the law were extremely severe. 
The English merchants thus became monopolists, fixing the 
prices of both the products received from Virginia and the 
commodities which they sent there. The colonists, however, 
still enjoyed free trade with the neighboring colonies. After 
suffering for nine years under this oppressive measure, their 
burden was made still more onerous by the subjecting of local 



122 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

trade with New Amsterdam and New England to the same taxes 
as trade with the Mother Country. In consequence of the Navi- 
gation Act, the colonists were impoverished, and a spirit of dis- 
satisfaction and unrest was created. Notwithstanding the 
impoverishment and suffering wrought by the act, the colony 
would probably have escaped the revolution known as Bacon's 
Eebellion, had it not been for Berkeley's unjust and impolitic 
course in perpetuating the same Assembly for sixteen years by 
successive prorogations, instead of ordering, according to cus- 
tom, elections for new Assemblies, and by failing to punish the 
aggressions of the Indians for fear of thereby incurring personal 
losses in the fur trade. . 

About four months after Sir William's election, Charles the 
Second was proclaimed king. In April, 1661, Sir William went 
to England on official business and left Colonel Francis Moryson 
to act as governor till his return in the fall of 1662. Making 
due allowance for the narrow mindedness of the age, Colonel 
Moryson appears to have been a man with some liberal ideas. 

In 1667, and again in 1673, Dutch fleets appeared at the 
mouth of James Eiver and destroyed the English shipping. 

In the summer of 1675, certain Susquehanna Indians who 
had been driven south by the warlike Seneeas, and had lodged 
with the Piscataquas at the head of Chesapeake Bay, crossed the 
Potomac into Virginia and stole some swine. The marauders 
were pursued into Maryland by the Virginians, led by Colonel 
George Mason and Major George Brent, and, in the pursuit, 
several friendly Susquehannas and a chief were killed. Ee- 
prisals followed by the Indians, who quickly gathered into one 
of their towns which they fortified. 

A large body of Marylanders and Virginians under the leader- 
ship of the above officers and Colonel John Washington appear- 
ing before the town, five Indian chiefs came out for a parley. 
These, it would appear, were slain, without provocation. The 
town was then beseiged for about seven weeks, when the entire 
body of Indians unexpectedly made a night sally and escaped. 

The only measure which had thus far been provided by the 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 123 

colonial government for protecting the frontiers against the 
Indians was the establishing at remote points of a few insignifi- 
cant forts. These posts, on account of being so widely separated, 
afforded no security to the settlers, while their maintenance was 
a great drain on the public purse, which caused general dissatis- 
faction. 

In January, 1676, a band of Susquehannas attacked the 
frontier settlements at the heads of the Virginia rivers, and 
slew many of the settlers. Governor Berkeley ordered a force to 
be assembled by Sir Henry Chicheley to punish the Indians. 
Before the order was carried out, however, the troops were dis- 
banded without making any demonstration. The governor's 
reprehensible conduct in this matter, by which an extensive area 
of sparsely peopled country was exposed to the depredations of 
the savages greatly incensed the people, and it became common 
talk among the gossips that "no bullets could pierce bever 
skins." In response to a petition from the people for an organ- 
ized force to proceed against the Indians, the governor forbade 
the presenting of any further such petitions, under severe pen- 
alties. This caused some to naively remark that "rebbell for- 
feitures would be royal inheritances." 

News of an invasion by the Indians being received, a large 
gathering of the people of the upper tidewater counties was held, 
at which Nathaniel Bacon, Jr., of Curie's Neck, was prevailed 
on to take command of a band of three hundred volunteers, for 
which position the governor was requested to grant him a com- 
mission. 

Bacon was an educated man, of good family. He came to 
Virginia when about thirty years of age, with his wife Elizabeth 
Duke, about 1674, and settled at Curie's Neck, about twenty 
miles below Eichmond. He was of an impulsive and impetous 
nature, and a born leader of men. He left two daughters, but 
no sons.' 

2 Colonel Gordon McCabe, in Times-Dispatch, Richmond, Va., Jan. 
12, 1907. 



124 THE SITE OE OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

The commission not being forthcoming, Bacon set out without 
one, and attacked and killed a number of Ockinagee Indians, to 
whom he had applied for subsistence for his men, but who 
gave in return, possibly at the instigation of the governor, only 
evasive replies. These Indians were regarded as friendly. 

The governor at once proclaimed Bacon and his followers as 
being in a state of rebellion, ordered them to disband, and set 
out with a small party to intercept them. Failing in this, and 
probably being aware of the murmurings of dissatisfaction of 
the people at his shortcomings, he at once, on his return to 
Jamestown, ordered an election to be held for new burgesses, 
and directed a number of the useless and expensive forts to be 
abandoned. 

Nathaniel Bacon, Jr., who had heretofore been a member of 
the Council, was nominated as a burgess from Henrico County, 
and being duly elected, proceeded in June, 1676, to the capital, 
to take his seat in the Assembly. Being apprised, on his arrival 
near the town, of the governor's intention to arrest him, he 
attempted to return up the James. His sloop, however, was 
overtaken, and he and a number of his adherents were arrested 
and taken before the governor. 

The crafty Berkeley, mindful that Bacon's influence could be 
more effectually curtailed by keeping him out of the Assembly, 
restored him to the Council. This, however, was not done until, 
at the instance, and under the persuasion of his kinsman, Colo- 
nel Nathaniel Bacon, Sr., Bacon had acknowledged his trans- 
gression and besought the governor's pardon in a " parasiticall " 
paper formally presented on bended knee. 

Immediately following Bacon's pardon and restoration to the 
Council, the Assembly declared war against the Indians, and 
nominated Bacon as commander of the forces to be employed 
against them. The governor acquiesced in Bacon's appoint- 
ment, and promised to issue a commission to him within a few 
days. After vainly waiting several days for the commission, 
Bacon returned to his home at Curie's Neck, on James Eiver. 

It is stated by some that Bacon obtained the governor's per- 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 125 

mission to leave Jamestown under the plea of his wife's illness, 
also that he had been warned to seek safety in flight from the 
governor's hostility. It is probable, however, that Bacon, being 
a man of great perspicuity and determination, was aware of the 
governor's insincerity, and would not brook temporizing. 

On June 21, at " 2 of the clock," within a week of Bacon's 
departure, he returned to Jamestown, crossed the isthmus and 
invaded the island at the head of four to five hundred armed 
men. Bacon's entrance was entirely unopposed. His troops 
formed on a green " not a flight shot distant," or less than one 
hundred yards, from the state house on the third ridge. 

In a half hour the burgesses were assembled by drum beat, 
and in an hour Bacon proceeded to the state house with a 
guard of fusileers. Near the corner at the eastern end of the 
building he was met by the governor and Council. Both of the 
principals to the meeting were greatly excited, the governor 
baring his breast and challenging Bacon to shoot him, while the 
latter reassuringly replied that the procuring of a commission to 
fight the Indians, and not the infliction of personal injury on 
the governor, was his only purpose. In the meanwhile, the fusi- 
leers of Bacon's guard intimidated the burgesses gazing at this 
exciting scene from the upper story of the state house, by leveling 
their pieces with matches lighted at the windows, and vocifer- 
ously demanding their leader's commission. It is also reported 
that Bacon muttered "Dam my blood, I'll kill governor and 
Council, Assembly and all, and then I'll sheathe my sword in 
my own heart's blood," and that all that was necessary to carry 
this blood-curdling vow into execution was the drawing of his 
sword, which was prevented by the "waiving of a pacifick 
hankercher " by one of the aforesaid burgesses, accompanied by 
assurances that the commission would be given him. 

The following day a commission was presented to Bacon, who 
promptly rejected it, probably on the score of its insufficiency, 
and another was soon drawn which met his approval. After 
passing an act carrying full pardon to Bacon and his followers 



126 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

for their previous unauthorized and illegal acts during the 
uprising, the Assembly adjourned. 

General Bacon at once started for the appointed rendezvous 
of his forces at the Falls of James Eiver, and the governor 
skulked to Gloucester. 

Eeassured by the recent action of the governor and Assembly, 
the people rallied to Bacon's standard. 

On the very eve of Bacon's departure to attack the Indians, 
news was brought to his army that Governor Berkeley had again 
proclaimed him a rebel, and had called out the Gloucester militia 
to march against him. The people, however, were lukewarm, 
five-sixths of them, it is said, being in sympathy with Bacon. 
The militia, therefore, did not respond to the governor's call. 
Learning of Bacon's being on his way to Gloucester, the gov- 
ernor left for Accomac across Chesapeake Bay. 

Bacon then made Middle Plantation (midway between James- 
town and Yorktown; later Williamsburg) his headquarters, and 
issued a proclamation declaring the governor and Council trait- 
ors, and requiring their apprehension and surrender. He also 
summoned the leading men of the colony to his camp to advise 
on the colony's affairs. After calling a meeting of the Assembly 
for September 4, and sending an armed vessel under Giles 
Bland and Eichard Carver to capture Berkeley at Accomac, 
Bacon again sallied forth against the Indians. In the marshes 
of York Eiver he was joined by Colonel Brent with four hun- 
dred men, who ostensibly had gone out to oppose him. The 
united forces scoured the country, and drove the Pamunkey 
Indians from their fastnesses. 

Bacon's naval expedition ended disastrously, both command- 
ers and vessel being captured by a ruse. A writer of the time 
states that the capture was " caused by their indiscretion and 
the juice of the grape." Bland was taken by an old enemy, 
Philip Ludwell, whose brother Thomas, secretary of state, he 
had challenged by nailing his glove against the secretary's door. 

The governor having raised a force of six hundred men, left 
Accomac for Jamestown with fifteen sail and, appearing before 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNB." 127 

the town September 7, demanded its surrender. The seven 
hundred raw recruits under Colonel Hansford at once withdrew, 
and Sir "William entered the town, the old hypocrite falling on 
his knees to offer thanks for his return. On learning of the 
governor's movements, Bacon hurried, by a forced march, to 
Jamestown, arriving at the isthmus with about three hundred 
footsore and tired men. 

Over night, a work of earth and fascines was thrown up by 
Bacon's men on which, the following day, the guns of Sir Wil- 
liam's vessels opened an ineffective fire. While the firing was 
in progress Bacon extended his work and shortly after received 
and repulsed a half-hearted assault of Berkeley's men. 

Bacon having brought up " two great guns," " The one he sets 
to worke (' playing some calls it that takes delight to see stately 
structures beated down and men blown up in the air like shuttle 
cocks')," the other to breach Berkeley's work on Block House 
Hill, at the southern end of the isthmus (see map). It appears 
that while moving these guns over the rough ground and em- 
placing them, Bacon exposed the wives of the members of. Sir 
William's Council, whom he had taken into custody for the 
purpose, as a shield for his working party. This act would make 
Bacon appear rather more resourceful than gallant. 

It was now Berkeley's turn to evacuate the town. Disheart- 
ened by the failure of his attack on Bacon, and yielding' to the 
importunities of his men, he embarked his forces, under cover 
of night, and dropped down the James. The next morning 
Bacon entered the town and "that the wolves might harbour 
there no more " burned it the same night. 

From near Mulberry Island, made memorable as the point 
where, over sixty years before, Captain Brewster met Gates with 
La Warr's instructions to return with his party to Jamestown, 
which they had just deserted, Sir William's party viewed the 
glare of the flames consuming the product of years of toil and 
suffering. 

Bacon's next move was to Green Spring, from which he issued 
a manifesto against the governor. He then marched to Glouces- 



128 THE SITE OE OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

ter, where the seeds of disease planted by exposure developed 
into dysentery, from which he died. His burial place was kept 
secret to prevent his body being disinterred and hung in chains, 
and has never been revealed. 

Thus died the people's champion, but not in vain. His ex- 
ample in resisting tyranny and oppression survives, and his 
cause, which seemingly was lost really conquered in its defeat. 

After Bacon's death his party quickly fell to pieces for want 
of a leader, and by January 16, 1677, about seven months after 
its inception, the revolution was at an end. 

The execution of twenty-three of his prisoners by Sir William 
Berkeley brought obloquy upon his name from both king and 
people. The hapless victims of the governor's wrath, after 
passing through the mockery of drum-head courts-martial, were 
strung up usually wherever they were tried or where it would 
best suit the governor's whim. These executions were made 
under a proclamation issued by Berkeley, who suppressed the 
king's proclamation, which excepted from pardon only Nathaniel 
Bacon, Jr. 

The wave of revolt had scarcely passed before a wholesale 
confiscation was begun by the governor, who placed " the broad 
arrow" on property of all kinds, including the belongings of 
those whom he had widowed and orphaned by his bloody execu- 
tions. Some of this property was appropriated to his own uses, 
and formed the bases of suits against Lady Berkeley for several 
years after Sir William's death. 

Sir William was as loath to leave Virginia as his successor, 
Thomas, Lord Culpeper, was to go there. He disregarded the 
king's recall made in November, 1676, and did not leave Vir- 
ginia until May, 1677, after the king's summons had been re- 
peated. 

Lady Berkeley wielded great influence over her husband and 
his supporters, and after Sir William's departure from Vir- 
ginia, was the head of a cabal which intrigued against Colonel 
Jeffreys, the lieutenant-governor. The other members of this 
cabal were Colonel Philip Ludwell, Colonel Thomas Ballard, 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 129 

Colonel Edward Hill and Major Kobert Beverley. 3 Lady- 
Berkeley was apparently very proud of the title of courtesy 
acquired by her marriage with Sir William, for, contrary to 
custom, she used it after her marriage to Colonel Ludwell, and 
it is to be seen on the only remaining fragment of her tombstone 
in the Jamestown churchyard. 

Sir William's immediate successor was Colonel Herbert 
Jeffreys, one of the three commissioners sent to Virginia in the 
autumn of 1676 to report on Bacon's Eebellion. He commanded 
the regiment then sent to Virginia from England, " His Majes- 
tie's own regiment of Foot," the First Grenadier Guards. He was 
directed to conduct affairs till Lord Culpeper should arrive. 

Culpeper, with other noblemen, favorites of King Charles the 
Second, had been granted the Northern Neck, or Potomac Neck, 
in 1669, and in 1673 received a grant of the entire colony for a 
term of thirty-one years. He was appointed governor for life 
July 8, 1675, his appointment to go into effect on the death or 
resignation of Berkeley. 

Colonel Jeffreys performed the duties of the office for about 
eighteen months, when he died. Sir Henry Chicheley, Knight, 
described by some as " an old and crazy gentleman," but in fact, 
as shown by his private and official life, an estimable man, then 
acted as deputy governor until the tardy Culpeper arrived in 
May, 1680. 

Culpeper did not relish a sojourn in Virginia, and the king 
had to threaten to supersede him if he should longer delay his 
departure from England. He was subsequently dismissed for 
absenting himself from his government without permission, 
after being warned for committing a first like offence. It 
was during his last absence from Virginia, in May, 1682, while 
Chicheley was deputy governor, that the tobacco plant cutting 
occurred. There being a surfeit of tobacco, and its culture con- 
sequently being unremunerative, the people asked that an Act 
of Assembly should be passed forbidding its planting for a year. 

8 Calendar of State Papers, 1677-1680, p. 776. 
9— J. T. 



130 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

This request not being granted, the people set about destroying 
the crop. " The frenzy " spread from plantation to plantation 
throughout Gloucester and New Kent Counties, the owners of 
the destroyed crops joining the mob and assisting in destroying 
those of their neighbors. Both sexes participated in the move- 
ment, and when the authorities put a stop to the proceedings in 
the day time, it was resumed at night. Major Eobert Beverley 
was accused of being the instigator of the trouble, and upon his 
arrest it practically ceased. When Culpeper returned to Vir- 
ginia he tried several of the culprits, and, under a musty old law 
of the time of Elizabeth, hanged two of the poor creatures. 

Governor Culpeper resided, during his incumbency, at Berke- 
ley's old home, Green Spring. Of the mansion scarcely a trace 
remains, while the spring flows unceasing, probably as profuse 
and cold as it was over two hundred years ago. 

One of Culpeper's acts, while governor, was to defraud the 
English soldiers sent to Virginia during Bacon's Rebellion, out 
of part of their pay by paying them off in pieces of eight, the 
coin current, at a higher value than that fixed by law, and appro- 
priating the difference to his own uses. 

Culpeper was superseded by Erancis, Lord Howard of Effmg- 
liam, in August, 1683. Effingham did not arrive till February, 
1684, and meanwhile Nicholas Spencer, secretary of the Council, 
acted for him. During Effingham's administration the state 
house, burned in 1676, was rebuilt, and a treaty made with the 
Five Nations in New York (August 5, 1684), who, for many 
years, had been a constant menace to the settlements in Mary- 
land and Virginia. 

Lord Howard established the reputation of being about as 
avaricious and unscrupulous as Lord Culpeper. He endeavored 
to have an act passed empowering him and the Council to raise 
money for the expenses of the government without the approval 
of the Assembly, but was unsuccessful. He was perpetually 
engaged in controversies with the Assembly, and was extremely 
unpopular. 

During about two years of Effingham's term while he was 



THE SITE OE OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 131 

absent, between 1688 and 1690, Colonel Nathaniel Bacon, Sr., 
president of the Council, acted as governor. No events of par- 
ticular moment occurred in the colony during this period. 

In June, 1690, Sir Francis Nicholson, Knight, as lieutenant- 
governor, assumed the reins of government for Effingham. He 
was tactful and conciliatory, and made an excellent governor 
during his two years of office. Governor Nicholson was one of 
the subscribers to, and founders of, William and Mary College. 

In 1692, Sir Edmund Andros, Knight, succeeded Effingham 
as governor. He was also appointed representative of the Bishop 
of London, of whose diocese Virginia formed a part. The Kev. 
James Blair, first president of William and Mary College, had 
been appointed the bishop's commissary, or representative, 
several years before. A clash over ecclesiastical matters occurred 
between the governor and the commissary, in which although 
the governor, on account of his official position, had a tempo- 
rary advantage, he was finally worsted. In November, 1698, 
Nicholson returned to Virginia as governor and successor to 
Andros. His second administration was the antithesis of his 
first, and in it he distinguished himself for committing numer- 
ous petty illegal acts instigated by spite or caprice. 

During Nicholson's second term Jamestown's career was 
terminated by the seat of government being transferred to Wil- 
liamsburg. 

Few of the Eoyal governors seated at Jamestown ran the 
gauntlet of office and escaped without meriting censure. Some 
of the governors under the London Company were probably the 
most meritorious, not the least of whom was the illustrious La 
Warr. Although La Warr's stay in Virginia was of too short 
duration to fully test his ability and character, it must not be 
forgotten that he not only bestowed his talents, but gave life 
and fortune as well to the founding of this nation. 



The English and Vibginians of the 

Seventeenth Centuey 

S the reign of James I. of England began but four years 
before the first landing of the English at Jamestown, 
and as that of his great grandaughter, Queen Anne, ter- 
minated fifteen years after the capital of the colony was 
transferred to Williamsburg, the life of the town was approxi- 
mately coincident with the Stuart dynasty. It is more nearly 
measured by the reigns of the four Stuart kings. 

Virginia was ever loyal to the house of Stuart. When the 
tocsin of civil war sounded, the impetuous and courageous 
Berkeley prepared for resisting the invasion of Virginia by the 
"Koundhead" forces. Then, too, at the restoration, Virginia 
was in the van in welcoming the king to his own again. 

Although a knowledge of the physical characteristics of James- 
town and its environs are necessary to mentally depict its out- 
lines, it is also essential, to make the picture life-like, to give 
some account of the conditions existing during its time. Un- 
fortunately, Jamestown held no Evelyn or Pepys, from whose 
journals to cull, and for information we, perforce, must turn to 
the " Mother Country." 

As many of the Jamestonians were from London and its 
vicinage, a presentation of some of the more important social 
and economic conditions prevailing in England, especially at 
the metropolis, during the reign of the Stuarts, should in a 
measure give an idea of conditions that obtained during the 
same period at Jamestown. 

At the opening of the seventeenth century the dawn of en- 
lightenment was beginning to break on the Christian world, 
and England was furnishing her quota of scholars, whose efforts 
contributed towards lifting the dark veil of superstition that 
enveloped the earth, by unfolding the laws of Nature and 

[132] 



^rf&g^ 




THE SITE OE OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 133 

Nature's God, and turning them to the advantage of mankind. 
The seed planted by the writings of Francis Bacon, John Locke, 
Sir Isaac Newton, and others, however, was slow to bear fruit. 
The emancipation of the human mind was gradual, and the be- 
nign light of knowledge did not shine with sufficient strength to 
fully dispel the encumbering mist until many years after the 
little town had sunk into its sleep, which knew no awakening. 
Coincident with the promulgation of a knowledge of the Coper- 
nican system, Astrology was thrust aside ; but the flames hitherto 
kindled by fanaticism under the guise of religion still claimed 
their victims at the stake in the persons of heretics, witches and 
sorcerers. King James I participated in the torturing of thirty 
unfortunates, who were executed at Edinburgh, to wring from 
them confession of a witch conspiracy against him and his 
newly wedded wife, Anne of Denmark. The savage law of 
executing witches was practiced, to a considerable extent, in the 
Massachusetts colony, where, at the instigation of the Eev. Cot- 
ton Mather, nineteen so alleged were executed in 1692. In 
Virginia, none was executed, but one poor creature was abused 
by ducking. But then, as Bancroft explains, " New England 
was a religious plantation." 

Inasmuch as when ships were delayed by stress of weather or 
through fault of their masters or crews it was the fashion to 
ascribe such bad fortune to the presence of a witch among the 
passengers, one of whom was singled out and summarily execu- 
ted, it was rather hazardous in those days for a homely woman 
of advanced years to take passage for Virginia. There is record 
of two women bound for Virginia being thus hanged at sea, 
Mary Lee in 1654 and Elizabeth Eichardson in 1658. John 
Washington, brother of Lawrence, witnessed the execution of 
the latter, and endeavored to prevent it. 

Until near the close of the century the almost sole means of 
communicating intelligence at a distance was private corres- 
pondence. News letters were in vogue, and a few poor news- 
papers were being printed in London, but a newspaper at all 
resembling one of to-day did not appear till about the time of 



134 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE. 

Queen Anne. The first weekly newspaper published in England, 
" The Newes of the Present Week," made its first appearance 
May 23, 1622, or the day following the first massacre of the 
Virginia settlers by the Indians. 

The education of females was, as a rule, neglected. Some 
women of high social standing could not write their own names. 
Books were scarce and expensive. The profit and enjoyment of 
the writings of Shakespeare, Locke, Dryden, Bacon, Milton, and 
others, were restricted to a few, possessed of considerable means. 

The seventeenth century passed without giving England a 
single painter or sculptor of renown. A landmark of the times, 
however, St. Pauls, or " Paules " as it was familiarly called, 
survives at London, a perfect creation of its style, by one of 
England's greatest architects, whose tomb carries as part of the 
significant epitaph, " Si monumentum requiris, circumspice." 
"Wren's constructive genius and talent as an architiect shone out 
in the rebuilding of London after the great fire of 1667, when, 
among other works, he constructed fifty of the fifty-three 
churches that were rebuilt out of the ninety-eight that were then 
consumed. It is said that he designed some of the early Vir- 
ginia buildings, but there appears to be no evidence to support 
this statement. 

Medical science was in an almost negative state. True, the 
circulation of the blood had been discovered by Harvey, but the 
skill of the general practitioner of the healing art appeared to 
have been of the highest who surrounded the compounding of 
his prescriptions with the greatest mystery, and could produce 
the most startling and nauseous concoctions. Medical works 
there were, some home written, others translations, but with the 
exception of some still familiar simples, such as senna, gentian, 
wormwood, rhubarb, and a few other dainty herbal remedies, 
they contain few prescriptions that would not arouse our com- 
miseration for the unhappy patients to whom they were admin- 
istered, or that would reflect credit even on an Indian Medicine 
Man, or an African conjurer. Poultices made of toads and 
snails were highly regarded, and when King Charles II was on 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 135 

his death bed, suffering apparently from a stroke of paralysis, 
besides the placing of hot irons to his head and subjecting him 
to the almost invariable bleeding, he was forced to swallow a 
brew made from human skulls. No wonder he complained of a 
consuming fire within. 

A feature of the treatment of fever consisted of covering the 
patient with bed clothes, almost to suffocation, in a closed hot 
room, and John Evelyn notes in his journal his belief that one 
of his children was killed by this treatment. 

Among the great army of medical quacks and empirics there 
were a few bright lights. All, however, resorted to bleeding, 
except for loss of appetite and a few other ailments. Shortly 
before the middle of the century the learned Sydenham proposed 
using for fevers Peruvian bark, but recently introduced into 
Spain (1642). In this, however, he was opposed by his con- 
freres. Touching by the sovereign for the cure of King's Evil, 
dating back to the time of Edward the Confessor, was practiced 
till the reign of Queen Anne. 

Although religious fanaticism was not as violent in the seven- 
teenth century as in the sixteenth, the penalty of death at the 
stake was still inflicted on those adjudged heretics by ecclesias- 
tical courts. This penalty was meted out to two Arians in the 
reign of King James I, four years after the settlement of James- 
town. The conflict between religious sects still obtained, it 
being the fashion for the dominant sect to persecute and torture 
those whose theology or creed was at variance with its own, and 
to use harsh and cruel measures in pointing out the road to 
salvation. 

Sympathy for those in misfortune was not generally mani- 
fested, as it is to-day, and the few charities lacked organization. 
The rabble made sport of the felon on his way to the gallows, 
and followed him with gibes and execrations. The culprit in 
the stocks was derided and pelted, and could account himself 
fortunate if he survived the ordeal with no worse punishment 
at the hands of his fellows than the bodily bruises made by their 
missiles, and the laceration of his feelings by their taunts. This 



136 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

iack of feeling was not confined to the lower classes, for we are 
told that gentlemen of fashion showed a like moral depravity by 
attending by way of pastime the whipping of women prisoners 
in the jails. 4 Men's minds had not been directed into humane 
channels, and the standard of benevolence was at such a low ebb 
that some who were accounted philanthropists thought it not 
amiss to employ children of the tender age of six in factories. 
Discipline in the school room, the family, and in military 
organizations, was harsh and cruel. 

Tennis, golf and card games then, as now, were pastimes, 
also morris dances and May pole games, both now all but obso- 
lete. About a quarter of a century after Jamestown was founded 
the Puritans in some districts of England prohibited the people 
from engaging in games and sports on Sundays, in consequence 
of which King Charles I issued his "Declaration of Sports," 
forbidding any interference on Sunday afternoons with those 
indulging in such sports, as dancing, archery, and other similar 
pastimes, provided they had attended divine service in the morn- 
ing. Bull baiting and playing at bowles, however, were pro- 
hibited. The play of skittles was abolished by law. 

During the reigns of James I and Charles I music was re- 
garded as a necessary accomplishment for both sexes, and was 
cultivated by all classes. Chappell tells us that " Tinkers sung 
catches, milkmaids sung ballads, each trade and even beggars 
had their special songs. The bass viol hung in the drawing- 
room for the amusement of waiting visitors, and the lute, 
cithern and virginals were necessary furniture of the barber 
shop. They had music at dinner, * * at supper, * * at wed- 
dings, * * at funerals, * * at night, * * at dawn, * * at work, 

* * and at play." Under the Commonwealth, music was con- 
demned by the Puritans as frivolous, and as one of Satan's 
snares, and they excluded it from the church and family. With 
the Restoration, music was revived. Madrigals, resembling 
glee songs; dramatic plays, interspersed with music, called 

* Macaulay's Hist, of England, Vol. I. 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 137 

masques, the precursor of the opera, were the common forms of 
presenting it. The harpsichord, as successor of the virginals, 
appeared during the century, but the musical instruments in 
more common use included violins, viols, and several forms of 
harps and wind instruments. 

The purchasing power of the English laborer's wages, com- 
pared with the prices of necessaries, was apparently about half 
as great as to-day. The wage rate was fixed by law, and em- 
ployers paying a higher one were subject to penalties. 

Wheaten bread was too expensive for general use, and pease 
pudding, oatmeal porridge, rye bread, cheese and small beer, 
were common articles of diet. Meats, as compared with wages, 
were high. Vegetables in common use, both in England and in 
Virginia, comprised peas, cabbage, cauliflower, onions, turnips 
and carrots. Tea was introduced into England towards the end 
of the Commonwealth, and coffee in the sixth year of King 
Charles the Second's reign. 

It was not until seventy-two years after the landing of the 
English at Jamestown that the act of Habeas Corpus, which in 
a restricted sense had become a statute in the reign of Charles 
I, received, in a more extended form, royal approval at the hands 
of Charles II. James II endeavored, although unsuccessfully, 
to have Parliament repeal the act. The act was not operative in 
Virginia during the Jamestown period. 5 

When the colonizing of Virginia was begun it is authentically 
stated that there were nearly 300 offences against the law for 
which the death penalty, with or without the benefit of clergy, 
was prescribed. Among them was the refusal of the accused to 
plead in court. A notable instance of the infliction of the 
penalty for this offence in the Colonies was that of Giles Cory, 
pressed to death " between boards " at Salem, Massachusetts, in 
1692. Witches and sorcerers were to pay their reckoning with- 
out benefit of clergy, also those who should " relieve comfort or 
maintain any Eoman Catholic ecclesiastic," or who were seen 

6 Campbell's History of Virginia. 



138 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

consorting with Gypsies for one month. Conviction of theft 
from a church, dwelling, or the person, of the value of twelve 
pence, constituting compound larceny, of breaking a dam en- 
tailing the loss of fish, of cutting down a cherry tree in an 
orchard, of transporting wool, lead or silver out of the realm, 
of counterfeiting and of breaking jail, were also to be atoned for 
by death, although the culprit in these instances was accorded 
the privilege of receiving from his priest the solace of religion. 
Even beyond the middle of the 18th century 160 of these relics 
of the jurisprudence of a still lightless age remained unrepealed, 
among them being the burning at the stake of women who had 
murdered their husbands. This penalty, derived from an 
ancient Druidical law, was not repealed until the reign of 
George IV. 

An example of the excessive penalties then inflicted is illus- 
trated by the case of Wm. Prynne, a Presbyterian lawyer, whose 
offence consisted of having written a book against the stage. 
His work was entitled " Histriomastix, or a Scourge for Stage 
Players/' It was published in 1633. The penalties were a fine 
of ten thousand pounds sterling, Prynne also to have his ears 
cropped and his nose slit, to be disbarred, branded in the fore- 
head, to stand in the pillory in Westminster and Cheapside, and 
be perpetually imprisoned, "like monsters that are not fit to 
live among men nor to see the light. 5 ' Judging from the inven- 
tive genius displayed in devising punishments, the bent of men's 
minds appeared to have been fiendish, rather than human. 

Few of the twenty-four Lord Chief Justices of the King's 
Bench serving under the four Stuart kings, possibly six, can be 
classed as eminent for ability, learning and high character, and 
still fewer exhibit the characteristics usually ascribed to the 
personality of an ideal judge. Of the six worthy judges, five 
were dismissed, among them the illustrious Coke, for being dis- 
inclined to carry out the nefarious and arbitrary whims of their 
sovereign masters. The other eighteen were sycophants of 
various degrees of unfitness. Persons of known bad character 
were sometimes appointed to this exalted position, a case in point 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 139 

being John Popham, chief justice in the reigns of Elizabeth 
and James I. While Popham attended the Middle Temple, 
and after he was admitted to the bar, he was a member of a gang 
of highwaymen, who replenished their purses by night on 
Shooter's Hill, near London, at the expense of belated travelers. 
It appeared to be essential for the holding of this high office that 
the incumbent should render a servile compliance to the king's 
will. Persons having the additional characteristics of being 
arbitrary and remorseless were sometimes sought and found. 
A Stuart never retained on the bench a justice of " doubtful 
principles," and the giving of a judgment or opinion against the 
Crown was tantamount to inviting dismissal. 

In the reigns of Charles II and his brother James II, the 
principal purposes of the courts appear to have been oppression 
and revenge. The juries were packed by the minions of the 
court, and the defendants were almost invariably found guilty. 
In conducting a court it was not uncommon for the chief jus- 
tice to browbeat and intimidate the witnesses, insult and defame 
the accused and coerce the jury into rendering a verdict in 
accordance with his wishes, regardless of the testimony. 

At the beginning of the seventeenth century the resources of 
England were not sufficiently developed to maintain its popula- 
tion, although it was probably only about one-fifth of that of 
to-day, and many there were to whom, on account of the pre- 
vailing small daily stipend of sixpence to a shilling, Virginia 
offered great inducements as a haven from interminable poverty. 
To such the prospect of becoming landed proprietors seemed 
sufficient recompense for a few years' service to the London 
Company, or to those of ample means who advanced their pas- 
sage money, to be repaid in land grants and the service of the 
person thus indentured. 

The majority of the Virginia settlers naturally were from the 
more humble walks of life, including many of the sturdy yeo- 
manry. Virginia also received a large number of the gentry, 
and many bearing titles. The last named generally held official 
positions. There were also large accessions to the colony in the 



140 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

persons of political exiles, many of whom as officers and soldiers, 
had participated in the several revolutions of the seventeenth 
century. Thus, after the fall of Drogheda, in Ireland, many of 
those not put to death by Cromwell's soldiers were exiled to 
Virginia. Again, after the battle of Worcester, 1600 soldiers 
of Charles I's army followed. After the Eestoration, many non- 
conformists and Cromwellian soldiers were exiled to the colony, 
and some of these took an active part in the semi-religious 
uprising of 1663, and in Bacon's Eebellion. A number of 
Scotch prisoners of war were deported after the uprising in 1678, 
as well as some of the participants in Monmouth's Eebellion in 
1685. Some malefactors were sent to Virginia, but then, as 
has been shown, offences which in those days were felonies 
involving the death penalty are to-day rated but as mis- 
demeanors. Sir Thomas Dale, while lieutenant-governor, advo- 
cated sending felons to Virginia, but his methods of governing 
were those of a harsh centurion and taskmaster, and were well 
adapted to incorrigibles. Children were kidnapped, sold into 
slavery and sent to Virginia, until this crime was made a capital 
offence, without benefit of clergy. 

Charles II ordered the Virginia officials to suspend the opera- 
tion of the law which had been enacted in 1671, prohibiting the 
introduction of " jail birds," but the Virginia colonists pro- 
tested, and probably to some purpose, against their country 
being made a " Botany Bay." 

The lives led by the Virginians of the seventeenth century, 
according to to-day's standard were comfortless and monoto- 
nous. There was nothing to amuse, divert or entertain the 
mind, except the arrival of an occasional vessel from across seas 
or from neighboring plantations and the gossip furnished by 
the meeting of the Assembly or the holding of court. 

The volume of money in circulation in the colony until the 
latter part of the seventeenth century was very small, and en- 
tirely inadequate for business purposes. The standard of value 
was tobacco, as gold is to-day. As the value of tobacco in Eng- 
lish money varied with its demand and supply, it was a most 



THE SITE OE OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 141 

unsatisfactory medium of exchange. Bills of exchange, based 
on the holdings of Colonial merchants in England, appear to 
have circulated somewhat in the same manner as our bank-notes 
of to-day. 

Communication between distant points was carried on almost 
entirely by boats. Horses were scarce for about the first half of 
the century, and coaches were very rare, even at the close of the 
century. Lady Berkeley is known to have had one, for it is 
recorded that she induced her husband, Sir Wm. Berkeley, to 
employ the common hangman, a negro, to act as driver of the 
chariot which was offered to the commissioners to take them to 
the boat landing after their call at Green Spring to bid Sir 
William farewell, shortly before his departure for England in 
May, 1677. 

An enterprise which furnished occupation and great expecta- 
tions to both poor and well-to-do people in Virginia was the 
raising of silk. Much time and care were expended to make it 
a success, but despite persistent and repeated efforts, it failed to 
give compensating returns. The settlers failed to understand 
that the climate of Virginia is too damp and changeable for silk 
culture, which conditions were the real bar to the industry. 
Edward Digges, one of the Cromwellian governors, according to 
the inscription on his tombstone, was the sole proprietor of silk 
raising in Virginia. Sir William Berkeley, as stated in 
another chapter, also took an active part in the enterprise. 

The attempts to manufacture glass were unsuccessful. Beads 
were made for trading with the Indians, and were the exclusive 
property of the London Company. The sand at Jamestown, 
however, proved to be unsuitable, the glass workers became dis- 
satisfied, and the manufacture was abandoned. 

As the dwellings were small and families large, the sleeping 
chambers were overcrowded in early colonial days. Governor 
Berkeley's house at Green Spring had but six rooms and a hall. 
The James Eiver mansions and others that survive were erected 
in the eighteenth century, many years after Jamestown had 
passed away. 



142 THE SITE OE OLD " JAMES TOWNE. 

Table ware was generally of pewter. Table forks were by no 
means in general use. Towards the end of the seventeenth 
century table silver and plate were used in the households of the 
wealthy. Mrs. Elizabeth Digges, widow of the governor, left at 
her death what to-day would be regarded as a fair supply of 
silver plate for a person of moderate means. That cooking 
utensils and house furnishings were scarce is evidenced by the 
bequests in wills of iron pots and feather beds. 

Brass utensils were largely used in the kitchens of the 
wealthier. Paintings of merit were apparently rare. 

Although a lady of wealth usually possessed a fine silk and 
flowered gown for state occasions, also a lace trimmed bonnet, a 
gold or gilt stomacher, and ornamented fan and other finery,® 
wardrobes were rather scant, and the articles composing them 
were for utility rather than display. 

The distinctions of class, which were so well defined among 
the early settlers obtained although in a gradually diminishing 
scale, till long after the American Eevolution. Preferment for 
official position depended largely on social prestige, rather than 
on aptitude or merit. The lower social order was humble, at 
first, almost to servility. 

The conditions attending Southern plantation life fostered the 
Cavalier spirit among the proprietors. From this order, after 
losing a large measure of the hauteur common to its autocratic 
forbears, was evolved a type famed for its dignity and lavish 
hospitality, " The Old Virginia Gentleman." 

Frontier life, in which, for a bare existence, a strong arm and 
a brave heart were required, taught the settlers, even of the 
most humble class, self-reliance and fearlessness, and developed 
that latent love for complete freedom which is planted by the 
Divine hand in the bosoms of the English people. From this 
class principally, at a later day, came the rank and file of Bacon's 
followers, in his trying marches through marsh and forest in 

6 Economic History of Virginia in the nth Century, by Philip 
Alexander Bruce. 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE.' 



143 



quest of the hostile savage, and to defy a tyrannical governor. 
From this class also, still later, sprung the hardy pioneer, who 
made it his mission to penetrate the unexplored regions beyond 
the Virginia mountains and build up an empire of vast propor- 
tions reaching to the furthest western limits denned in the second 
charter to "the first colony." 




Appendix. 

AN ABRIDGED DESCRIPTION OF THE METHOD EMPLOYED IN 
LOCATING "THE NEW TOWNE," FROM THE VIRGINIA LAND 
PATENT RECORDS. 

The following patents were used for locating "the New 
Towne :" 

(1) John Pott, "Doctr, of Physicke," for three acres "in the 
new Towne," dated August 11, 1624. 

(2) Same grantee, for 12 acres, including the above three 
acres, dated September 20, 1628. 

(3) John Phips, for 120 acres, " part thereof in James Citye's 
liberties," dated February 23, 1656. This patent includes 10 
acres "formerly granted by patent unto Dr. John Pott." 

(4) John Knowles, for 133 acres, 35 9-10 chains, " part with- 
in and part without the liberties of the said city," dated May 6, 
1665. 

The tract covered by this patent includes the above 120 acres 
purchased from John Phips; 3 acres 44 37-100 chains, also pur- 
chased from said Phips ; and 9 acres 71 53-100 chains, " due for 
transportation for one person." 

(5) William Sherwood, for 308 acres in James City and 
James City Island, dated April 20, 1694. 

The Sherwood tract included 3% acres "purchased by him 
the said Wm. Sherwood of John Page Esqr;" 1 acre (see (9) 
below; 133 acres 35 9-10 chains "being heretofore granted by 
patent dated the 6th day of May 1665 to one John Knowles;" 
28y 2 acres "granted by patent dated the 4th day of October, 
1656, to one John Bauldwin;" and the remainder, "being for- 
merly granted to Richard James by patent dated the 5th day of 
June, 1657." 

(6) Henry Hartwel 1 for 2 acres, 1 rood, 24 1-10 poles, dated 
April 20, 1689. 

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THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 145 

(7) Eichard Holder, in "James Citty," for 8 acres, 1 rood, 
5 poles, dated January 28, 1672. 

(8) Wm. Edwards, Jr., for 127 poles in James City, dated 
October 15, 1698. 

(9) William Sherwood, for one acre of land * * * "in 
James Citty on which formerly stood the brick house formerly 
called the Country house," etc., dated April 23, 1681. 

The tracts represented by the patents are shown on the 
accompanying "Plat of the Tracts." They were connected by 
means of their common boundaries, as follows : 

(1) The northern boundary of the Pott tract, (2) line 31-32, 
is also one of the lines of the Phips (3) survey. 

(2) The line 31-32 is also common to Phips (3) and Knowles 
(4), and the line 31-33 of Knowles is a part of the line 31-27, 
of Pott. 

(3) The lines 4-11, 11-10 and 10-9 are common to Knowles 
(4) and Sherwood (5). 

(4) The lines 4-11, 11-10 and 10-9 are also common to Sher- 
wood (5) and Sherwood (9). 

(5) Lines 11-10 and 10-9 of Hartwell are common to Sher- 
wood (5), Sherwood (9) and Knowles (4), and Hartwell 36-11 
forms part of line 4-11 of each of the above tracts, (5) and (9). 

(6) Line 19-20 Hartwell (6) differs 1%° in azimuth from 
the line 19-26 of Holder (7). The length of the line 19-20, 
however, being but SI 1 /* feet, the above difference of azimuth 
would change the position of the point 20 but one foot, a too 
insignificant difference to be considered in a compass survey. 
Hartwell's patent reads for the course 17-19, "buts on the land 
now or late of holder." It also reads for line 19-20, "thence 
along holder," showing that the above line is a part of Holder's 
western boundary. 

(7) The azimuth of the line 19-26 of Holder (6) is the same 
as line 21-26 of Edwards (8). The length of the above line for 
the Edwards tract, however, is shorter. The south end of the 
above eastern boundary of the Edwards tract (8) is described as 
being " at ye mouth of ye Orchard Run on James Eiver," and 

10— J. T. 



146 THE SITE OP OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

the same end of the line for the Holder tract is described as be- 
ing " at high water mark on James River side at the mouth of a 
small run entering thereinto." The runs are undoubtedly one 
and the same. 

The patents show that Orchard Eun was on the south bank of 
the island. As there is but one stream entering the river on 
that bank that could be designated a run, it was readily identi- 
fied. 

The descriptions in the patents furnish some other data as to 
the names of owners of adjacent land, which further confirm 
several of the above determinations. 

Several errors were discovered in the survey notes of the 
transcripts of the patents above referred to and, until they were 
located and corrected, it was found to be impracticable to plat 
the tracts. The errors were those of the surveyor and of the 
scrivener who transcribed the patents. They comprise princi- 
pally the reading of the south end of the needle by the sur- 
veyor, and in transcribing, misplacing the decimal point in 
the length of a course given in figures, and entering azimuths 
incorrectly. 

In one of the patents, (Sherwood 9), the azimuth of every 
course of the survey is reversed. The last named tract might 
be omitted from the plat, as it only serves the purpose of con- 
firming the junction of three other tracts, Knowles (4), Sher- 
wood (5) and Hartwell (6), which is well established. 

All of the foregoing tracts being platted, the point 26 was 
superposed on the mouth of Orchard Eun, previously identified 
and located on a modern map, and the map as made up from 
ancient patents rotated around point 26 until its magnetic 
meridian had a western declination of 6y 2 degrees. 1 It was then 
found that point 1 of Sherwood (5) fell on the south side of the 

1 The magnetic declination at " James Citty " about the middle of 
the seventeenth century was probably six or seven degrees west. 
There are no data prior to 1694 for any better than a rough approxi- 
mation. Six and a half degrees appears to be close enough for the 
class of surveys to which is here applied. 



THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 147 

branch of " Pitch and Tarr Swamp," thus agreeing with the 
description in the patent record for Sherwood (5). Another 
point of Sherwood (5) near its eastern end, omitted from the 
accompanying plat — as by including it the map would have been 
made too large — falls within thirty-five feet of where the de- 
scription places it, viz., on the edge of a great marsh on Back 
Eiver. 

A causeway across the swamp before referred to, being prob- 
ably the bridge given as a witness mark in the Knowles patent 
(4) being found very near the point indicated by that patent also 
confirms the location of " the New Towne " as exhibited on the 
map. 

The south line of the Pott tract 27-28, (1) and that of Phips 
(3) fix the position and direction of Back Street. The southern 
boundaries of tracts of Hartwell (6), Holder (7) and Edwards 
(8), fix the positions of parts of the southern bank of the island 
for the seventeenth century, which is thereby found to conform 
closely to that of to-day, thus showing that it has not been 
abraded to any extent by the waves. This is as it should be, 
for the part of the island, shore immediately below the present 
wharf has not been greatly exposed to wave action. The ancient 
south shore of the island and the positions of the Pott tracts 
and the Back Street being established, the Ealph Hamor tract 
was platted by its dimensions given in the patent records." 
Its position was then approximately arrived at by finding by 
trial the place on the chart where the length of the tract would 
fit in between the Back Street and the "highway along the 
banke of the Main Eiver." 

The area of the plat of John Harvey 3 being given, also its 
northern boundary, Back Street, its eastern boundary "the 
Swamp lying on the East side of the said New Towne," its 
southern boundary, "upon the highway close to the banke of 
the Main river," the approximate position of the tract was 
ascertained after several trials. 

2 Va. Land Pat. Record, Book I, p. 3. 
a IMd, Book I, p. 5. 



148 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

From the descriptions of the Harvey and Hamor tracts the 
position of those of George Menefy 4 and Eichard Stephens, 6 
and also those of the two cross streets, all of which are men- 
tioned in the descriptions of the two first named, were readily 
found, and finally the tract of John Chew, 6 all as shown on the 
" Map of lames Citty, Va., 1607-1698." 

N. B.-— Lines indicated on the " Plat of the Traces " by num- 
bers 1, 2, 3, 4, 11, 10, are part of Sherwood (5) survey. 

Lines indicated by numbers 9, 10, 11, 4, 5, 37, 33, 31, 32, are 
part of Knowles (4) survey. 

Lines indicated by numbers 28, 34, 35, are part of Phips (3) 
survey. 

The dwellings of Knowles, later Sherwood's, of Col. White, 
later Henry Hartwell's, also that of John Phips, although 
having no connection with the matter of locating the " New 
Towne," are shown on the plate, on account of being interesting 
features. Their positions were determined from references to 
them in the patents. 

By comparing the " Plat " with the " Map of ' lames Citty/ " 
especially the Pott and Holder tracts, the relation of the two 
plates will be apparent. 

" Back Street " appears to have lost its name before 1656, as 
Phips 5 patent of that year, although following its lines, does not 
Tefer to it by name. Charlestown's (Boston) "Back Street," 
dating from very early colonial times, survives under its original 
name. 

'Ibid, Book I, p. 4. 

b IU<Z, Book I, p. 1. 6 Ibid, Book I, p. 7. 



Note. 

The Ambler MSS. and " The Site of Old ' James Towne,' 1607- 

1698." 

By the publication in April, 1904, of the report of the librar- 
ian of the Congressional Library, for the fiscal year of 1903, 
the author of " The Site of Old ' James Towne ' " was apprised 
of the acquisition by the library of a collection of MSS. of which 
he had no previous knowledge, showing the former possessions 
of the Ambler family situated principally at Jamestown or in its 
vicinage. An examination of the papers was made by him 
towards the end of April. 

The collection comprises upwards of 140 MSS., consisting of 
original patents, deeds and leases, copies of other similar docu- 
ments, certified and uncertified, and copies of three wills, also 
several plats of surveys, all showing the chain of title of the 
lands as vested in different owners up to 1809, and, in one 
instance, dating back to 1649. There is no reference in the 
Ambler papers, however, to grants of the tracts which formed 
the " New Towne " in 1623. A comparison of some of the 
original patents in the collection with their transcripts in the 
land register's office at Eichmond shows that the latter, in the 
main, are correct, and have been properly interpreted, thus prov- 
ing the accuracy of the " Map of ' lames Citty/ 1607-1698." As 
however, there is no plat of Jamestown among the Ambler 
papers, their possession at an earlier day would not have lessened 
the labor and study required for constructing the above map 
and the " Plat of the Tracts." 

The papers comprising the collection contain evidence con- 
firming the composition of the turf fort, and show that parts 
of it were still standing in 1721. They also confirm some other 
important features of the map. 

[149] 



150 THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 

Among the collection are several skeleton plats of surveys, 
two of which relate to Jamestown. One, made in 1680, shows 
that the western shore line of the island in the 17th century 
above the " Pitch and Tarr Swamp " was about as shown on the 
author's map. The agreement of the above chart with the 
" Map of ' lames Citty,' " in this respect, indirectly confirms the 
position given on the map of the part of the western shore of the 
island below the upper branch of the swamp. This evidence 
greatly strengthens the view expressed in the monograph as to 
the site of the landing-place at Jamestown of the first band of 
settlers. It is evident from the other skeleton plat that the 
Sherwood tracts of 1681 and 1694 were situated with regard to 
each other and the branch of Pitch and Tar Swamp, as drawn on 
the "■ Map of ' lames Citty,' Va., 1607-1698," and the " Plat of 
Tracts." These coincidences corroborate the position of the 
Pott tract as given in the map, and indirectly show the general 
correctness of the part of the map for the east end of the town. 

A reference in a lease for land on the second ridge in 1693 con- 
firms the location of the third and fourth state houses on the 
third ridge, as established from other data. No light, however, 
is thrown on the location of the church by the Ambler papers. 

It is learned from William Sherwood's will that the epitaph on 
his tombstone is worded in accordance with his instructions to 
his principal legatee, Sir Jeffrey Jeffreys, Knt., of London. 

Interesting information is supplied by the Ambler papers re- 
garding the S^-aore tract of " Col. Jno. Page of 1681," shown 
on the " Plat of the Tracts." The site of this tract on the " Map 
of l lames Citty'" is covered by Sir Prancis Wyatt's lot, and 
the lot attributed to Captain Eoger Smith. 

The Page tract included the original grant from Harvey to 
Eichard Kemp, Esq., in 1639, who conveyed it to Wyatt. 
Wyatt, through his agent, Wm. Pierce, sold to Sir Wm. Berk- 
eley, who sold it to Walter Chiles, whose widow — afterwards 
Mrs. Susan Waddinge — sold to Colonel John Page, who con- 
veyed it to Wm. Sherwood in 1681. The concluding sentence 
in the description of the survey of the tract made for Sherwood 



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THE SITE OF OLD " JAMES TOWNE." 151 

in 1682 reads: "Including ye Ruins Sq r Kemps Old Brick 
House." The above house was the first brick house built at 
Jamestown. It was 16 by 24 feet in plan and was referred to by 
Gov. Harvey in 1639, with considerable pride, as being the fair- 
est that ever was known to the country for substance and impor- 
tance. By the locating of the Page tract, therefore, the site of 
the first brick dwelling house in Virginia becomes approximately 
known. The evidence, though slight, shows that the house was 
near the southwest corner of the Page tract. 

Ralph Wormley, while secretary of state, resided on the Page 
tract, on or very near the Kemp grant. 




MAY II 1907 



